Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 22)

cover story one of two things happened next: either the young Khalsa found a new way to make a living, or something changed the way he approached salesmanship. Fortunately for all of those whom Khalsa’s advice has helped over the years, he decided to improve the sales process rather than find another line of work. Based on the brutal way his career started, that speaks as much to his determination and courage as his creativity and intelligence. As the founder of the renowned FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group in Salt Lake City (though he himself resides on Hawaii’s Big Island), Khalsa is one of the leading agents for change in the sales world. “The Internet and global competition have completely changed the face of selling since the 1990s,” he says. “Companies are no longer relying on a salesperson to get them information, because it’s now readily available from a number of other sources. If you aren’t directly helping the person in front of you by providing intelligence and insight that they can’t get anywhere else, having a good relationship isn’t going to get you sales anymore.” Today, Khalsa contends, successful salespeople need to have three characteristics: business intelligence (good IQ), the ability to create trust and rapport on a personal level (good EQ), and a good structure and methodology to the sales discussion (good execution, or XQ). Rather than advocating that sales teams work harder and do more, his mantra (which sounds as sweet as an angel’s voice to the nation’s harried and overworked sales professionals) is a simple one: Don’t do more things—do fewer, but do them better. month; I need you to send 10 per month.’” When sales leaders push their teams harder, the teams push their clients harder, and that strains relationships. When the results still don’t improve, the next time the More Button is pushed, it’s punitive and people start getting fired. Finally, executives push the Panic Button and get a new VP of sales or reorganize the company. At that point, the entire process reboots, because at the first meeting after the reorganization, the new VP of sales says, “Now that we’ve figured out the problems and fixed them, we think our sales teams can do … more.” Stress quality, not quantity The biggest problem with the More Button is that it tends to focus on activities and quantity, but rarely on quality: If 100 calls aren’t getting the job done, make 125 calls. Khalsa, however, replaces the More and Panic Buttons with a How Button. Here’s how it works across the three big sales buckets: I. New opportunities (filling the pipeline). Rather than making 100 phone calls to everyone in your database, prioritize the five potential customers who are most likely to need your solution. Invest the same time on the five as you would on the 100. Research those companies and their decision-makers in depth and build a business case hypothesis. Because your salespeople can now focus on five companies rather than 100, there should be no cold calling—ever. The next step should be getting a referral for the sales call. Statistics show that getting an internal reference has an 84% probability of securing a face-toface meeting with the customer. With a respected outside reference the number is 44%. Compare that The recurring bad dream Anyone who’s ever seen a Dilbert cartoon knows that the typical corporate approach over the last few decades is to have employees do more with less. And indeed, Khalsa’s advice is to do more … but to concentrate that additional work on fewer things. “There are two ‘buttons’ being pushed all the time by sales managers today: the More Button and the Panic Button,” he says. “The big question is, how many times will sales leaders push the More Button before they push the Panic Button? “Each year brings new products, new pricing, a new CRM system and new markets to tap, so that’s the rationale for the first More Button,” he continues. “If numbers aren’t where the company wants them to be the following quarter, the next push of the More Button is correctional. The sales leader might take a look at a salesperson’s pipeline and say, ‘You’re making five appointments a week; I need you to make eight. You’re sending out four proposals a 22 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT MARCH/APRIL 2008 www.salesandmarketing.com www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com photo by Annika Khalsa http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Sales Marketing Management Cover Story: Lessons From the Master Maximum Mobility Training Technology Incentives/Motivation Travel/Meetings Book Excerpt - Value Merchants The Way I See It - End the Discounting Habit

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

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