C-Level Selling and Advanced Selling Skills
Sales Management for C-Level Selling - 6 Steps to Make Your
Sales People Better
How would you rate the skill level of each of
your sales people?
What are you doing to improve each person’s skill level?
In other words are your sales people as good as you think
they should be and if not, what are you doing about it.
Sales goals are made or missed because of
management. Good managers keep their fingers on the pulse of
business. They know
what to expect and if those standards are not being met, they
takes actions to make their salespeople better. Better means
selling more, but selling more requires improving sales people’s
selling skills.
Here's the process I used to coach sales
managers:
1.
Rate each of your sales people on a
scale of 1 to 5 (1 - lowest level).
2.
Write down the strengths and weaknesses
of each of those people. I. E. for the weaknesses what
knowledge, ability, attributes, skill, etc. does this person
have to attain to become a better sales person?
What’s keeping him or her back?
What strengths is this person lacking?
3.
On a totally separate piece of paper
list all the skills, knowledge, attributes, abilities that you
would expect for a level 1, level 2, level 3, etc. Some skills
will progress with each level, and others may stand alone in at
a particular level.
An example of a progression is:
Level 1 -- No knowledge of industry; level 2 -- learning the
industry; level 3 -- knows jargon, needs, and some of the
players; level 4 -- well versed in the industry, knows most of
the players, know basic and complex issues and opportunities;
level 5 -- respected in the industry by associates, clients and
those outside his or her company.
An example of a
standalone is: level 3 -- ability to consistently ask for
commitment.
4.
Now, look at the strengths and
weaknesses of each sales person. Compare those to the
characteristics for the level you chose for that person. You'll
notice you missed some characteristics that define the level and
didn't include some for the person.
For example, Joe is a
level II and has trouble learning the issues and concerns of the
prospects he interviews. However, when you are preparing the
level characteristics, you left out "probing prospect to learn
issues and concerns". Similarly, level III requires the ability
to introduce new ideas to the prospect, so as to entice him. Yet
when you listed Joe's weaknesses, you forgot "ability to expose
and entice".
5.
Redo the levels and redo the
salespeople's weaknesses, incorporating the characteristics that
you missed in each. This will give you a more complete
description of the levels, as well as a better listing of the
individual's weaknesses.
Now that you have both your
standard and a list of the missing attributes, abilities,
skills, etc. that are required to get a particular sales person
to the next level, you basically have that sales person's
development plan.
6.
Build an action plan for each person to
progress to the next level. In other words, what will you (or
someone else) do to show the sales person how to attain the
skills or overcome the weaknesses; what does the sales person
have to do; when will it be accomplished by and; how will you
know (the metric) that the sales person has attain the skill or
overcome the weakness.
Although this six step plan sounds like a
lot, it’s really very simple. By selecting a level for each
person and defining his or her weaknesses, and then separately
determining skills for each level, you'll easily be able to
build the perfect level description and see the development
issues for each individual. Then you'll know exactly what you'll
have to do to help that person improve.
You'll also realize very quickly what’s holding the sales
person back from selling more.
More importantly it provides you and your
sales person, a great communication tool. Your expectations and
development requirements for this individual will be defined,
direct and systematic. There will be no misunderstandings and
these development plans will help your sales people improve
quickly. So try it, and I guarantee you'll be pleased with the
outcome.
Remember, if you want better (more sales),
sales people, you've got to improve their sales skills levels.
If you, the manager, don't build and enforce the plan for an
individual’s improvement, it will not get done. Few salespeople
try to improve themselves.
They have to be motivated (pushed and directed) by their
management.
Sales goals are made and missed because of
sales managers.
And now I invite you to learn more.
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Sam Manfer delivers
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Sam’s selling awards and $ Million sales recognitions support his
methods. His book,
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TO YOUR LEADER$ along with his
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