The author brings some reflections for sellers of security products and services, who are often only interested in selling and making money and do not think that their training gives them added value to their management.
By Adhir Uzcátegui
A group of salespeople heads to your training meeting. Can you imagine what each of them is thinking? Let's look at some possible reflections: I could be selling instead of going to waste time at these damn meetings, I've been selling for more than 12 years: What do they want to teach me?, Surely again we will do those blessed simulation exercises, and we will all say the same thing!!!, I hope that at least today the food is good ... Etc., etc., etc.
Why are salespeople often so skeptical before every training activity? They are too omnipotent, some of my colleagues would say. Others will say: They are only interested in selling and making money, they do not think that their training gives added value to their management.
Personally, I believe that salespeople only respect a training that has or can give added value to their work performance.
Usually, a salesperson is a person who starts the month with $ 0 in his pocket, and is building his salary day by day, his time is measured in sales.
The basics in sales, then, for those who have already seen them several times, can mean not only a lack of imagination, but a loss of money and a lack of consideration for their history and their knowledge.
Managers and directors of security companies commonly ask for results in terms of increased turnover. The question is: In the current context, just increasing sales is enough to survive? If that was enough, maybe a salesperson's training could be the same. However, the turbulent environment makes us think that something should change. Some competencies should be added to the training of sales professionals, so that the company obtains competitive results, without dying in the short term.
What is the basics in sales?
We define as basic those contents and basic skills that we work in the training programs in Sales Techniques. Why basic? Because without them, the seller probably has consumers who come to buy from him, not customers to whom he sells.
However, for some years now, these techniques have been repeated course by course, without creative innovations. The manuals have the same titles, the same exercises, the same illustrations, similar examples, etc.
I propose now that you look for the manual of sales techniques that you have more at hand and verify this statement. If you are lucky, you will almost certainly find more or less the following titles:
* Communication elements: verbal and non-verbal communication, obstructions in communication, good communication, learning to listen.
* Needs Detection: the importance of the client, different types of needs, Maslow and his pyramid.
* Stages of the Sale: Planning, approach, detection of needs, presentation of Benefits, Closing.
* The After-Sales.
* Different types of clients: Roles in the purchase decision process.
If the contents are basically the same, then the success of the training will have to do with the instructor's skills to manage and understand what happens to that group and to each participant.
If it's just the instructor, then the contents don't matter?
One minute
I would like to pause for a moment to clarify the following point: Training in the basics is not bad or insignificant. On the contrary, its management is fundamental for sales people. A lot of salespeople don't handle the basics well, and they're not just new to the trade.
First: we must be careful with repetitions (that the same people see the same topics) and with methodologies (courses in which the same didactic strategies are used again and again aimed at the same people)
Second: Shouldn't we be thinking about giving one more twist when it comes to content for the training of sellers?
A different context
What is the job of a salesperson?, asked a colleague friend in each training session of young salespeople. Obvious answer: Sell!!! , the boys responded enthusiastically.
No, my friend replied from his place as a war veteran, the main job of a salesman is to make customers, not sell.
But how to make customers in such a complicated context? Consumers stimulated to buy from their computer, from their home; price war; deflation; crisis; unemployment; information that flies, available in real time and for everyone. Increasingly demanding and less loyal customers, who will ask for even my blood without penalty of leaving with the competition. Making customers in this situation seems like a utopia!
Different competences
Obviously, our salespeople will have to develop more demanding skills than those used so far. If until now we could settle for them handling traditional techniques well, the basics, today a salesperson's survival kit must add three key points:
1. Thoroughly know the client and the client's business. Commercial Intelligence, and that is nothing more than a systematic way of obtaining valid, orderly and processed information, so that at the time of facing the client, we know more than anyone else about your business and yourself.
2. Give added value. A customer gives their time to a salesperson to come up with solutions. If what you receive in return is only pure information, which you could download from the Internet, perhaps it would have been best to send you an e-mail.
We don't have enough time. Neither do our customers. When we are given that time, we must give courage. We are committed, just by the fact of being received, to provide something to the client that awakens and meets their needs or problems.
A visit to a customer means a challenge for which every salesperson must be prepared, and the completion of a sales meeting should mean for the customer that they have not wasted time. Otherwise, we will lose him.
3. Build trust. Pass from the other side of the counter. We were recently designing a training program for security vendors, whose customers were retail stores. We came to the conclusion that those who could pass from the other side of the counter were more successful. There they could see what they sold and what they didn't, what the competition sold them, what they have in stock, what their problems are and what their successes are, and so they could help them find solutions. Gaining trust, that's the thing.
An old story had as its protagonist a Purchasing Manager who was at home with his 11-month-old son, the age at which we learn to walk and carry the step unsafely. This Manager puts his son on one end of the table, extends his arms to him and says: Come with your father purchasing manager, son! The baby, extends his little hands and walks towards him, but when he reaches the tip of the table, the father-purchasing manager withdraws his arms, and the baby crashes to the floor. That's so you learn not to trust even your father, our friend taught his son.
Who trusts a salesperson? A madman? Maybe. But many salespeople, the successful ones, succeed.
How to teach to build trust? Should only the sales force learn new skills for customers to trust us? Is it just about training? These are the Challenges of 2011. Let's work on them.
Building trust, the big challenge
What does trust mean? Consulting the dictionary we find: Firm hope that is held in a person or thing. Encouragement, encouragement and vigor to act. Familiarity in the deal. Tell about the person with whom you have intimate or family dealings. Say of the people or things that possess the qualities recommended for the purpose for which they are intended.
We then have two marked types of trust:
1. Trust link: It is the trust we place in a family member, our partner, a friend or a partner, where we shorten distances and can share information about our intimate and personal life, because we know that information will be used to help or support us. We are trusting in the values and attitudes of people close to us.
2. Professional trust: It is the trust we place in our Family Doctor, in our Accountant, in our Lawyer, or in the Teacher of our children. We share information, knowing that it is in good hands and will be used to our advantage, we believe that in addition to good willingness and honesty, the reliable professional has knowledge and skills that provide him with suitability to help us in the subject for which we are relying on him.
The competition of a seller who builds trust is linked to this second group. We can talk about football with my client, music, or cars, but we won't expect to share the same tastes and passions with everyone. It would be impossible, and fundamentally, I wouldn't add any value to my client.
Sympathy does not hurt, but it only generates trust to bond, not professional.
A Salesperson who builds professional confidence is similar to our children's pediatrician: he knows the medical history of my company, he knows what I'm talking about, he can understand me and contain me when I have a problem, he can diagnose because he knows the physiology of my business, and I know positively that he will use all that information, and his skills and knowledge to help me.
Happy Sales!!!
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