Text: Cobus Van Graan. Article from the April/May 2012 issue of Your Business Magazine.
No function in a selling organisation is outside the sales process…
An award-winning film is the result of great work from a host of people who contribute and pool their talents. A great business is one in which all team members pull their weight, and don’t simply rely on the sales team to get the job done.
Here’s an example of a scenario that plays itself out time and time again in business: Company A is having an excellent month and places a number of orders with Supplier B. Towards the end of the month Company A places a special order and is promised next-day delivery as Supplier B has stock on hand. But Supplier B fails to deliver the next day. And when Company A – now an irate customer – asks why Supplier B responds that Company A’s account is on hold as its credit limit of R1-million has been exceeded. Supplier B has effectively punished Company A for sending too much business its way, and hadn’t even raised the matter until pushed to do so.
The lesson learned here is that no function in a selling organisation is outside the sales process. Accounts, logistics, reception, technical support, management, marketing, and sales – in short, everyone has to be aligned to common goals and standards. To achieve this, you may have to implement a culture change.
Make your training count
Sales training commonly focuses on teaching soft skills and addresses the sales team only. That’s like trying to make a film where the actors are trained to act and everyone else is expected to know what to do. In fact, to get great sales performance you need to teach everyone in the organisation what they need to know in order to support the business objectives.
For salespeople, actual selling skills are only a part of the story; they need to acquire strategic skills to understand what kind of customers to seek out.
Middle managers must have similar, if not the same, strategic skills to ensure that objectives are the same across the team. Of course, they also need coaching and people development skills. If your managers and their salespeople aren’t aligned, sales meetings deteriorate into chasing the numbers, measuring call rates and customer head-count, without addressing the deeper questions of whether the customers you have are the right kind, in the right segment, and going to give you the best return for your efforts.
Reward a winning effort
Even if your managers and your salespeople are in harmony, your sales performance will still be below par if receptionists, support, or marketing staff unwittingly sabotage your sales efforts. Training for outstanding sales performance should be one course given to top management, middle management and sales, with elements of it given to the rest of the organisation.
Then perhaps you will be celebrating reaching 200% of target with your own Sales Oscars: acknowledging and rewarding Best Call Centre Operator, Best Delivery Man, Best Creditors Clerk, and Best Salesperson.
Cobus van Graan is the CEO of Tracer CQM, a company that specialises in boosting organisations’ sales effectiveness.
He can be contacted on 083 628 3084, cobus@tracercqm.com or visit: www.tracercqm.com.
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