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The 1st key is using an assessment tool in hiring
new salespeople and evaluating existing ones.
The web-based assessment tool I use is a powerful instrument that
will tell you:
a) whether the people you have or are considering
hiring can sell in your environment and execute your selling strategies;
b) whether they are trainable; and
c) if they are, any
weaknesses that should be addressed.
This tool thus reduces the risk of bad hires, while providing more
focused training for those who are hirable. For your existing salespeople,
this tool can help top performers identify hidden strengths and
weaknesses so they can make slight edge changes to take them to
the next level of results. It also saves you the time, money and frustration
of holding out to those who won’t succeed or training those who won’t benefit from such
an exposure.
(To view an assessment, go to www.objectivemanagement.com,
click on the top right on the “Samples”, then view
the assessments for new hires and existing salespeople.)
The 2rd key is helping trainable sales people to develop
the core competency upon which selling success depends.
What stops most sales people from consistently overachieving is
usually not just a lack of technique but a lack of the one
quality upon which all technique and skill depend: their
capacity to deal with risk, challenge and uncertainty. For it is this capacity that will determine how
high a salesperson will call, what questions he will ask, how well he will
execute the skills he knows, and ultimately how long he can keep risking
and selling in the face of disappointments, negatives and self-doubt. |
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To the extent this faculty is insufficiently developed, salespeople
will suffer from the “achievement killers”: high need for approval,
fear of failure, call reluctance, inability to ask the tough questions and
fear of rejection.
The failure to develop this capacity also explains
why most sale training models don’t produce optimal or sustainable
results. For they rest upon the implicit fallacy that “I know” necessarily
means “I can.” – it doesn’t. In sales
it’s not enough to know what to do, one must be able to
do it. My process avoids this fatal flaw by helping salespeople
develop not just selling skills that produce results, but the psychological
competencies required to perform them.
The 3rd key is introduce a selling system ( best practices)
so salespeople have a developmental model and management has method to hold
them accountable to.
Effective execution of sales strategy requires having capable
sales performers that know what to say and how
to say it when dealing
with prospects. To do this consistently and effectively requires
a selling system - a comprehensive and consistent set of practices and principles,
consisting of questioning strategies and selling approaches,
so salespeople know what to do and say in all selling situations: How to
stay in conversation on a cold call, how to determine rightness of fit between
your offering and your prospect’s
opportunity, how to sell value not price and how to help prospects
make decisions to either close the file or close the sale.
By identifying capable and trainable salespeople, developing their
core competency, and mentoring them on current best practices,
the end result is development that delivers results.
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