Sales Management seems to be a hot topic these days. Our blog at Successful Sales Management is attracting a lot of interest from people wanting to understand more about it. Or at least, somebody else’s thoughts on the subject. Readers registering for our email newsletter are asked what their role is in business. The one [...]
New Ideas for bringing sales and sales management into the new age
Are you still selling and managing sales with the old ideas? Probably yes, and probably no. And it probably isn’t working very well.
In most cases (perhaps not yours of course), the basic philosophy hasn’t changed in 200 years. While new thinking has brought fundamental change to engineering, purchasing, distribution, human resources and accounting, selling remains pretty much the way its always been. That accounts for the probably yes. But customers and markets have changed, which accounts for the probably no.
Not surprisingly, when one side of a relationship wants to do things differently, and the other doesn’t, there’s a disconnect. Sellers and buyers have difficulty communicating, and trouble finding ways of doing business. And the selling organisations are paying the price, in lost deals, heavy discounting and bad customer reviews.
There’s bad news here for the unreconstructed sales guys. They’re going the wrong way up a one way street. Customers are most definitely not going back in their box. Things are never going back to how they used to be. Buyers have choices, are informed, and want more, for less, every time.
Sales organisations understanding the customer dynamic have already changed the words they use. That’s how we got Solutions instead of Products and Consulting Based Selling. But are they walking the talk?
Probably not. Witness all the bad press recently experienced by the finance guys for selling rip off loans and insurance, utility companies for rigging tariffs, and pharmaceutical companies for bribing doctors. Bankers and doctors used to be the most trusted individuals, but these days they’re likely to be viewed as ingenuous opportunists looking for ways to make money out of gullible pilgrims.
That’s the way the customer thinks, including you, when in buying mode. Why would your prospects think any differently of you, when its you doing the selling? They won’t, if you keep doing the same old things, in the same old way.
But wait. There’s good news here. Sellers who work hard to show customers a unique combination of skills and resources, expertly deployed to create value for the buyer, in which the seller will share, will stand out from the crowd.
That’s the secret to success, selling to sophisticated, informed and demanding customers.
Show them, not tell them, how you can do a better job meeting their objectives than anybody else. And do that in ways which manage your costs of sale. Start winning more and better deals and stop wasting precious time and sales resource on prospects who aren’t going to by.
That’s what our Reengineering category is about.
Like what you read? Check out our eBook Reengineering Sales Management for the full story, including explanations, examples, templates, checklists, and tactics for making them work.
