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Articles on Sales Matters:

The Death of The Sales Profession

What businesses don't realize today is that the oldest profession is about totake a step back into retirement. Yes, I am referring to the Sales profession. Successful companies and businesses these days are adopting a different approach towards the success of their business. They are investing heavily in Marketing, Strategic Distributing Partners and Customer Service to do the selling. Shocking, well hardly because as a globe we are evolving each day.

The two big mistakes I see companies making today are as follows:

1. Companies that have products which do not require salespeople, yet they hire sales forces to try to sell them.

2. Companies that do have products requiring a sales force to sell them, but they force the salespeople to abide by those "old right answers."

In order to help you understand what I mean by these points, I'll use the telecom industry as an example. We look at the telecom industry and see that they are investing heavily in the 3 areas to generate their business. (1) Strong marketing campaign to distribute their brand. (2) Strategic Distributing Partners to cut on the sales force paying only commissions on ales by the partners. (3) Excellent Customer Service support to make sure that customers are well taken care of.

The past several years have been extremely interesting to watch because of what has happened in the telecom industry, where most of the companies have gone bankrupt while a select few are prospering. The ones that went or are about to go bankrupt have a common theme: they did zero marketing and went with the idea that the salespeople would be on their own, responsible for doing all of their own prospecting and lead generation.

It didn't work. The ones who are prospering wildly didn't even hire outside sales reps. They simply marketed their services and had call centers answer the phones and take orders. Does Dell ring a bell. Think about that for a minute.

The companies who didn't bother hiring sales reps but instead did marketing and had people take orders are extremely profitable. The companies that did not do any marketing but chose instead to send thousands of sales reps out cold calling are history.

This is the main shift that's happening right now in sales. Fortunately, more and more companies are figuring this out the hard way and are putting marketing support in place. Sales reps who are with companies that have not yet figured this out need to do their own marketing in order to survive.

The old stuff doesn't work anymore. We already know that old-school selling doesn't work anymore, and traditional advertising doesn't work anymore. Some are changing with the times and will survive and prosper, but most are sticking to that industry's "old right answers" and will wither away. that is extremely sad.

So yes, sales reps will be around forever. But the way in which they acquire new business will be changed forever. The big changes are already underway, and I think we're already past the big changes and into the new age of selling. Those companies and salespeople who implement "permission marketing" and allow prospects the means to "raise their hands" and let them know they're interested and ready to talk will prosper. Those who stick with the old idea of "interruption marketing" and continue to barge in and annoy people will not make it. These changes are already playing out big time.

I was laughing at the advice I saw in a sales discussion forum the other day. A trainer posted a message with the "old right answer" that you should call prospects before-hours and after-hours since the decision maker will be more likely to answer the phone. Like I said, I'm a business owner who knows lots of others and I can tell you that the only reason any of us are in the office early or late is to be able to work without interruption. During those times, nothing is more infuriating than a call from a salesperson. (Okay, a sales call on my cell phone is worse and even more rude, but I digress!)

The key to successful business and sales is now permission marketing. Chances are you read through this article or through a newsletter already shows you to have some interest in my story or product. You may not buy anything at the moment but over time a newsletter is an invitation for a prospect to actually buy something. Now that is even more powerful than anything else.

I actually started permission marketing many years ago. I would like to consider myself ahead of my time or ahead of the competition. Some of the things I did was so unorthodox that my ex-boss use to knuckle me down to earth by doing cold calling. When I started to have my own newsletter, I began to ask my clients if I can send them periodic newsletter keeping them updated on the latest changes, products and services. Tell you what, my clients like it so much that they keep coming back to me for more. My sales sky-rocketed through these methods and yet at that time it was considered unirthodox at that time. That was in 1994 when I first started to do this. See where it is now.

Calvin Yeo
Serial Entrepreneur
Singapore
16 Dec 2006
www.fantabulousservice.com
www.servicedelights.com
www.thewheelofwealth.com

Calvin is an expert in the area of Customer Service and on how using customer service techniques to acquire fantabulous sales results without the obnoxiousity of a salesperson. Calvin is also a professional speaker in the areas of wealth management and motivation.

The 80/20 Parito Principle in Sales

Any salespeople in his organization who are still cold calling after 3 months are automatically fired.

This is a practise of a top manager nationwide for a huge insurance company. When I asked why he does this, the answer was simple. He sees two major problems with any salesperson who is still cold calling after 3 months. First, that person isn't using his or her time effectively. Second, anyone who still needs to cold call after 3 months has failed to build an effective system of generating leads.

This manager is so on target that I'd quickly be out of business if his ideas were adopted by all other managers! And salespeople would be a lot better off both in terms of happiness and financial success! In fact, I wouldn't mind being out of business under those circumstances. I really enjoyed selling in those few positions where I had a sensible manager who could actually think for himself.

This person obviously understands some basic principles that I'd now like to explain.

Time management

I'm a big proponent of time management. I think anyone involved not only in sales but in any aspect of business in general needs to manage his or her time well. Time really is our most precious asset and the one most often wasted.

However, I think the study and mastery of time management needs to go far beyond the organizational skills usually taught in time management books and courses. Let me explain what I'm talking about. Here is how the average salesperson's time is spent:

80%: Prospecting
20%: Selling

Remember selling is not prospecting and prospecting is not selling. You got to get it right.

The fallacy in spending 80% of your time prospecting and only 20% of your time selling is that you're only paid to make a sale. You are not paid to prospect. You are not paid to cold call. You are not paid for time in your car. You are not paid to network and go to lead groups and mixers.

You are only paid to make a sale. In other words, 80% of the time, you're working for free.

What would your results be if you could reverse those numbers and spend 80% of your time selling? That would quadruple your sales. Let's say you fared poorly at increasing your time management and efficiency and only managed to double your sales. If you doubled your sales, wouldn't you be able to, say, hire a telemarketing agency to do your prospecting for you? Or put some money into other forms of marketing?

Of course you would.

From there your sales would begin to multiply exponentially. Which brings me to Lesson #2.

Metcalf's Law

Metcalf's Law states that the power of a network is equal to the total number of its components squared. In other words, if there's one component, the square of one is one, so the power of the network is 1. If there are 2 components, then the power is 4. 3, and the power becomes 9. And on and on.

For our purposes, let's apply Metcalf's Law to selling. If you and you alone are doing all of your own prospecting, your power is 1. If you implement one lead-generation system to work on your behalf while you continue to prospect on your own, you have two elements at work, and your power is now 4. Enter a third lead-generator and your power is 9. Four, and your power goes to 16. And on and on.

This is why it's so important to forget the idea that you must be self-sufficient and do it on your own. It's much better to put systems to work for you. That way you'll increase your power exponentially and begin to enjoy the fantastic power of leverage.

Leverage

The biggest mistake most salespeople make is failing to use the power of leverage to their advantage.This goes back to the mentality of doing everything on your own, or of being self-sufficient. Companies are guilty of this sort of antiquated thinking when they expect salespeople to be self-sufficient and find all of their own leads instead of providing marketing support to generate qualified leads for the sales reps.

A salesperson, or company for that matter, that is using the power of leverage gets ahead exponentially. A few simple systems that cost little or nothing to get started are at work, contacting prospects in a variety of ways. It's like having three or four people out there prospecting for you. But because all of your time is now free to spend on selling to qualified prospects, rather than waste your time cold calling and chasing unqualified prospects, your power goes up exponentially rather than incrementally.

It really makes no sense at all to have the mentality that you're going to be the classic rugged individualist and try to go out there and do it all yourself. Successful managers and owners build teams. Successful salespeople build lead-generation systems. If you're not attaining the sales results you desire, it's probably because you're not using systems and the power of leverage and Metcalf's Law. Stop trying to do it all yourself, and begin building and using systems to do it for you. Then, and only then, can you reverse the 80/20 rule in your favor.

Many of us have read "Walk Like A Giant, Sell Like A Madman" by Ralph Roberts. Ralph devotes most of that book to the effective use of systems. Those of you who have read it will remember that he eventually built his systems to the point where all he does now is close. His systems take care of all the preceding steps. Read that book if you'd like to learn more about the concept of using systems in a sales position.

If you're ready to begin using the power of systems and leverage to your advantage, my "Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time" program will show you exactly how. You'll see just how and why the people who are already using it are selling more and working less. You'll also learn about several different systems that you can begin using right away to generate leads. To order or for more information, please visit:

http://www.nevercoldcall.com/order.htm

Good luck and happy selling!

Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr.
19 Dec 2006
http://www.nevercoldcall.com/order.htm