As the
economy rolls on, sales myths still permeate product and
professional service sales forces trying to hit their
forecasted sales quotas. Like urban myths, many of these
business beliefs just continue to proliferate without
identified authorship or business validity.
Here are the top ten sales myths that are currently
en vogue:
Myth One
Spending a disproportionate amount of your available
sales cycle selling time with a decision influencer will
increase your sales success.
Reality
Hitting sales targets is a time management issue. How
many prospects do I have? Which are qualified? How many
can I talk with or see in person in a single day? How
quickly can I move them through the required sales steps
and how fast can I get them to take an action step to
buy from me? These variables all are relevant in
selling. Decision influencers (usually middle-level
managers) are communication liaisons for your business
value. When you present and sell them, you are asking to
have a non-professional salesperson communicate your
business value for you to the decision makers. When
focusing on middle-level managers, you are saying A) you
do not have the sales skills to get to the decision
makers B) you are hoping they will be able to discuss
your business value as well as you can. Can you sell
middle-level managers? Yes, but it is a slow
non-preferred process.
Myth Two
Dropping prices will increase sales in the long-term.
Reality
Time and time again, every business segment that has
followed a commodity-based pricing schema has failed.
Selling down and by price is a short-term sales model
that cannot sustain financial integrity. Repeat
customers buy value; single sale customers buy price.
Myth Three
Business networking is better than cold calling for lead
generation.
Reality
This is another urban myth propitiated by those who do
not want to cold call. Sales reps who will not cold call
are half-cycle salespeople. Yes, networking can create
leads, but the quantity and the amount of time involved
consistently will never match your efforts of cold
calling 50 C-level executives each day. Networking is a
long-term, minimum volume lead generation technique for
salespeople. Cold calling is the sales pipeline of
success.
Myth Four
Sales training is a cost center.
Reality Most CEOs do not spend enough on sales training.
They believe that it is more important to invest in
development or operations staff training than sales
training. In fact, sales training is more important than
technical education and is a true business profit center
investment. Without sales, you don't need development.
CEOs can always subcontract development work - but try
subcontracting your sales!
Myth Five
Clients buy technology or business services.
Reality
Clients never buy technology or business services.
Account managers who sell business services or
technology usually sell less. Clients buy pain
management.
Myth Six
Because you were successful in the past, you should be
successful this year.
Reality
Salespeople often defer to a comfort zone of auto
selling - doing the same things year after year. This
repetition implies that all prospects and customers are
the same - that they are not individuals and that they
don’t change.
Buying needs are changing. Do you know what will
drive them to action steps in 2010?
Myth Seven
Marketing department responsibility should be focused on
brochures, web site communication, and tradeshow
management.
Reality
PR is not revenue; marketing is not revenue; and
advertising is not revenue. Revenue is revenue. The
marketing department's primary business responsibility
should be creating qualified sales leads for the sales
team.
Myth Eight
It is the sales management’s responsibility to close
sales deals for you.
Reality
Sales management's responsibility is to help you sell as
a salesperson. That means increasing qualified lead
traffic, supervising operational issues that affect your
deals, updating your sales training skills, and acting
as an intermediary with corporate management. That does
not mean going to every sales presentation or meeting
every Fortune 1000 prospect in person. Many times, this
becomes the norm instead of the exception because sales
management usually carries the department's quota as a
whole and revenue is revenue. Why pursue sales
management if you have to close every deal?
Myth Nine
The more strategic partners you have, the more sales
leads you will generate.
Reality
Strategic partnerships and alliance management is a
full-time job. It is definitely quality over quantity
that counts. Most firms have many strategic
relationships that are worthless. Like any investment of
time and money, alliances need to be quantified with an
assigned quota for revenue generation and minimum
expectations of lead generation volume to warrant the
relationship. Partnerships must have an annual ROI or
their time and effort is worthless.
Myth Ten
Question-based sales probing will increase sales.
Reality
The fact is asking detailed questions of prospects too
early in the engagement process actually ends most sales
cycles. You cannot cold call or engage a vice president
of a large company the first time, start pinging them
with probing business questions and expect them to
answer. This myth is propitiated through fluff sales
training programs and books designed for insurance and
car salespeople. To achieve sales success to senior
management you must first earn their respect as a
business peer, not a vendor. You must validate your
knowledge about industry pains, so you can earn the
right to ask investigative questions about their
business needs when it is appropriate. The key to
sales success is not using probing questions too early.
Instead, act like a strategic advisor and communicate
your business value up front -- EARN THE RIGHT to ask
probing questions.
"MYTH": a usually traditional story of ostensibly
historical events that serves to unfold part of the
world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or
natural phenomenon. -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary
About The CxO Group, LLC
Rick
Erling is CEO and Founder of The CxO Group, LLC. We
are a managing partner of the Value Forward Network
and have consulting partners in five countries
making us one of the world's largest management
consulting groups focused on helping companies
increase corporate revenue capture.
We work with senior executive teams to integrate
sales process, marketing methodology, corporate
strategy and financial management into one outbound
revenue capture program to increase corporate
revenue. We do this by assessing the value your
customers see and the value you think you have and
then measure the "value variance" gap between the
two. Once we have identified the "Value Variance"
between the two, we then make appropriate strategic
and tactical recommendations on your corporate
strategy and marketing programs to close the gaps.
When this is completed, we then train your sales
team to sell to management more effectively using
techniques that are linked to our recommendations.
Top-performing organizations are increasing their
companies' revenue, within a constricted economy, by
investing in our revenue capture strategies.
For
more information, visit:
http://www.thecxogroup.com
or call Rick Erling directly at (972) 727-6880
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