- Have only skilled sales people, ones who without thinking, empathize with customers and their problems. Make sure they know your products intimately, and the business of the customers as intimately so they can identify unique ways your products can add value to the customer.
- Have in place the sales support mechanisms so that every opportunity identified is optimized. Sales people make sales talking to customers, not chasing late orders through your systems.
- Have a “sales culture” where the whole organisation recognises that customers are the reason they are in business, and it is everyone’s job to sell, not just those with a bag.
Selling is a tough job, and getting tougher, as the number of ways a potential customer can purchase expand with the web, and consumer confidence is fragile, despite the stunning Australian figures a couple of days ago.
No longer can sales people fulfill their budgets by being accurate and sympathetic purveyors of information, and doing a lot of calls, they now need to be able to add value in ways that competitors and no other channels can duplicate at the price.
How do you do this?
The bad news for sales professionals is that there will be less of you as time goes on, the good news for those left is that they will be paid a lot more than they are now as their value is recognized.
