Are Your Salespeople Bilingual?
Consider for a moment that the president of your company has come to you with an incredible opportunity! You have been asked to start or lead the company’s presence in Brazil. Your compensation will increase by a factor of 10! All expenses paid. Your family will be well taken care of. It is a five year assignment based in Rio de Janeiro. What concerns would you have?
The first concern many would probably address is the goal of this assignment. How will my success be measured? Equally important could be the fact that you may not be able to speak Portuguese.
Could you be successful in Rio de Janeiro not being able to communicate in Portuguese? Quite possibly. Rio de Janeiro is a major international city. There are plenty of people there who speak English. However, would it make a difference if you could speak Portuguese? Most certainly! What might be some of the benefits of being able to communicate in the native language of the people with whom you will be working?
- Improved Communication translation creates confusion and makes comprehension difficult.
- Credibility you will be seen as credible and trustworthy if you know the local language.
- Likeability in general you will be better received if you speak the local language. You may not be seen as such an outsider.
- Respect you will be more respected if you speak the local language.
- Differentiation you will be set apart from others who don’t speak the local language.
This list is by no means exhaustive. We could go on, but you get the point. There are numerous benefits to understanding the language and the culture of your prospects and customers.
Every day sales people are asked to call on C-Level executives without fully understanding their language and culture. They have a language all their own. They think about things differently than most other people your sales people typically visit. Understanding the language and the culture of the CFO, the CIO, the COO or the CEO is just as important as understanding Portuguese in the preceding example. Do you or your sales people fluently speak “ROI“, “Life Cycle Return Analysis” or “Cost of Ownership“?
Master this language at our next Financial Justification course. Learn the language of the boardroom. Be comfortable and successful working with C-Level executives!
The Sales Manager’s Dilemma
Sales people report to you. Some are new, some are seasoned. Some are struggling, some do well, and some need help. You have a training budget, but it’s limited and you want to use it wisely. You want the most bang for your buck, but you are not sure what to do or how to go about it. Who needs help? Who does not?
Selling isn’t easy. It can be even more difficult to determine why a salesperson or sales team, is not performing at peak levels. Most managers believe traveling with their salespeople can uncover areas of concern. But for an objective review of a salesperson’s capabilities and skills, other tools may be more effective. We are a licensed distributor for TTI Success Insights™ assessment tools. Many of our customers use these assessments to identify needs and develop training for their teams.
For example the Success Insights™ Sales Skills Index evaluates sales people’s abilities in six areas.
- Prospecting
- First Impressions
- Qualifying
- Demonstration
- Influence
- Closing
It has been our experience that the majority of sales managers believe that Closing is the most common area where sales people struggle. It’s astonishing how many times we have heard sales managers tell us “Our people know how to sell, they just don’t close!” What we have found is that weaknesses become visible at the closing so it is natural to assume this is where the problem is. However, after collecting years of data from these assessments, a common thread we see across the board is that inexperienced and experienced sales people alike, share a weakness in areas other than closing.
Please contact us if you are interested in assessing your team.
An Email From A Customer
We hope you’ve never lost business like this:
Joe:
Since we are old friends, I want to explain why I think your company lost our business. Joe, please do not feel that it was due to any lack of representation by your company and product. Certainly, it was not because you did not present yourself as a professional, or that you did not present your company’s product as a great solution, or that you did not know your product inside-out. Joe, you are, of course, a top-notch salesperson. I really wanted to buy from you.
Unfortunately, Mr. Topranking, Executive CEO, was impressed by Connie Competitor and her expertise in the Everything Line. Honestly, I am surprised she won the business. Ms. Competitor’s presentation was of a completely different nature than yours. In fact, she did not present at all. Instead she asked a bunch of questions and then she just sat back like a bump on a log and listened to the answers. Moreover, she was obviously not as prepared as you. She had to make several trips back to us in order to supply Mr. Topranking with more information.
Really, Joe, it was not your fault. It was just that the more Ms. Competitor listened and the more Mr. Topranking talked, it became apparent to everyone that what Mr. Topranking really needed was not the product you were selling us at all. In fact, we were not even aware until yesterday that your company carried a comparable product.
Anyway, just wanted to express my condolences and assure you that you did a fine job. Great Presentation!
Fondly,
Rich Client
Any Business, Inc.
Sales Concepts Postscript: What went wrong? Joe may have been selling too low in the organization. He apparently did not keep up with the critical business issues or industry trends. And Joe certainly did not ask the right questions.
Is there someone like Joe on your sales team? We can help.
What Motivates You?
Many times in the course of everyday life when I travel, attend a business conference, or some other type of function, I am often asked what I do for a living. When I tell people I work with a company that provides training for people who work in sales and customer service, people usually respond by saying; “Oh, so you do motivational type stuff?” “Well…” I respond, “not exactly.” Then I am usually greeted with a blank stare, a look of bewilderment, or some other awkward state of confusion.
Why is it that as soon as I utter the words sales training people think about motivational stuff? I did say sales training, did I not? If I said we provide training for people who repair computers, or drive tractor-trailers people would not respond in the same manner. Why is it when I say sales training people automatically assume sales people need to be constantly motivated?
Many of us in sales forget, or take for granted, that selling is a skilled profession, and an honorable one at that! Why do people who aren’t in sales think we have to be motivated all the time? Don’t truck drivers get discouraged? I can hear it now “Gosh, another 1,500 miles to go. I don’t know if I can do this or not.” What so many people who don’t sell for a living overlook is that to succeed in sales you must have command of some critical selling skills.
I think the reason people on the outside of our enlightened profession believe sales people have to be continually motivated is because we have to overcome enormous amounts of so-called rejection. My retort for this is, “Who doesn’t?” Don’t baseball players go through slumps? Don’t writers sometimes suffer from writers block? Yes, it may be true that after ten or fifteen fruitless calls life can seem a little bleak. This challenge is the hidden gem that makes selling so compelling.
Think about it. After fifteen calls without the sound of the pen hitting paper, a sharp look in the eye, a firm handshake and a smile of approval, even the most seasoned sales professional can get a little dejected. Remember though, this is where the real magic is. Selling is still a numbers game. So, what motivates you to make that sixteenth call? If you have been trained well in effective strategies and tactics, you will eventually come upon someone who buys. This seems to happen just about the time you wonder when you are going to close your next deal. So, if you are hitting that proverbial dry spell, more business could be just one call away.
“Few things are impossible with diligence and skill” – Samuel Johnson
A Note to Your Inner Sales Person: Experience Doesn’t Necessarily Make You Better.
We sell sales training. An objection we hear at least once a day is “My people are experienced, I don’t have any new people.” When we hear a manager say this, we really want to shout “We’re experienced too, but we still make mistakes.”
We miss opportunities to be a source of value for a prospect because sometimes we sometimes don’t listen well, or maybe don’t ask the right questions. Maybe We’re not working with the decision maker. We want to say to this manager that sometimes experienced sales people get stuck in bad habits. Even experienced people lose business. There is always room for improvement and growth.
Does this sound like someone on your team, or maybe even you? If you have been selling for a long time, when was the last time you tried a new strategy or tactic with a prospect or customer? Do you do the same thing over and over hoping for different results?
We are often asked to give advice to new sales people. Based on ourselves and the experienced sales people we know, we think the advice below is helpful for experienced salespeople as well as rookies!
LISTEN
The most important skill a new sales person can learn is to listen to what not only what a customer is saying but what they mean. Don’t be afraid of silence. Silence is okay. Customers want to know you are listening to them. Take notes. Think before you speak. Check for clarification to make sure you understand.
WRITE AND CREATE ELEVATOR STATEMENTS
Create value statements about your company to use when leaving a message or sending a text. Practice saying them out loud. Really work on understanding the value your company offers not only your customers, but your customers’ customers as well.
ASK QUESTIONS
Invest time to develop questions that provide information to move the process forward. Before any sales call, write seventeen questions you want to ask the prospect. The first few will be easy. Sales people need to stop telling and start asking questions.
SELL VALUE
If you make a statement about how great your company is to the prospect, be aware the prospect is thinking, “SO WHAT!” Understand your prospect’s needs and pain points. Connect the dots for your customer.
GET WITH THE DIGITAL AGE
Use the tools available on the Internet to connect, stay in touch, and research your customers. The vast majority of sales people consistently use a fraction of what is available.
CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS
What you don’t know in a sales call may be more important than what you do know. Assumptions made prior to, or during a sales call, limit your ability to consider alternatives and impede the search for facts.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF AN OBJECTION
Ask questions to find out why the customer has an objection. Make sure you understand the reason for the objection. Think about the objections you most often hear. Plan ways to reduce risks for your customers. Ask your coworkers what they do when they hear specific objections.
RECOGNIZE CUSTOMERS’ STYLES
Determine if your prospect is task oriented or people oriented. Determine if they make decisions slowly or quickly. Don’t treat everyone the same way. Some customers need to build more rapport more than others. Some need to know the price first. Some need all the details and then more details! Be aware! Customers are not all the same.
UNDERSTAND THE FINANCIAL IMPACT YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES HAVE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS
Spend some time and learn financial concepts and how to use them to uniquely cost justify your products and services. If you can, show a customer how quickly they can make a return on their money. You will close more business.
CLOSE
Ask for the business. Follow your gut. Closing should be natural. If closing is awkward or a struggle, then you are messing up at the beginning of the process, not the end.
