On the 3rd of March, I published this post “Need Sales Training, Let’s Sit Down and Talk About it”

It was a rough transcript of a phone call I took from an Irish Sales Director. He was inquiring about sales training for his sales team and insisting that I send him a proposal and price - he did not want to meet up. I refused as I didn’t feel that I was in a position to do so. He refused to accept my explanation - and the call ended somewhat badly.

In hindsight, I could have taken a differing approach, and perhaps drawn out the conversation more - but my instinct was telling me that I would be wasting my time.

This post has generated a lot of interest, critiques and debate; I am somewhat surprised - because it appears to have split some sales experts’ right down the middle. Some have strongly complimented me on my stance, where as others feel I lost potential business -because of my approach.

So what would you do in this same situation?

The prospect wants a proposal and price, before you have had a chance to investigate their needs. He/she is insisting that you do, and your competitors have willingly obliged. Remember, in not doing so – you probably lose any chance of making the sale.

Here are some of the comments that this post has generated.

Christian Maurer

“Good to read from a sales trainer that walks the talk”

Dave Stein

“Niall sets an example for sales trainers as well.  I commend him on his understanding of how sales performance improvement should be approached and his integrity for not folding, even with money on the table during these tough times”

David Stargel

“I’ve been through that conversation myself many times. I also will sometimes ask the potential client, “If this was your salesperson, would you want them to blindly respond to a price quote request without knowing anything about the customer at all?”

Tim Sullivan

“How would you like your own people to respond to a question like that from your potential customers? Just give a price, without really diagnosing their situation, goals and needs?” He got mad, and ended the call. Perhaps I was being too direct. I’m still struggling how best to answer these kinds of “price first” inquiries, before getting the necessary information. But we’d be doing the customer a disservice if we didn’t follow good business practices”

Anne Perret

“I take pretty much the same stance as you, stick to my guns and my proposition and am prepared to walk away. Strangely it’s a stance that is often successful”

Ian Brodie

“I’d agree with you generally - and certainly wouldn’t do a proposal without a clear, agreed understanding of what the customer needs (and I’d prefer not to do a proposal at all).However, I would consider giving the client a ballpark range for how much a 2-day course would cost if it turned out that that was what was needed. In this case I don’t think it would have made any difference. The guy seemed to view sales training as some sort of generic “magic sauce” you could sprinkle on your sales team to improve their performance without needing to tailor it to their needs”

Alecia Huck

“Again, given the different perspectives on what effective sales training is and how it should/can be delivered, it sounds like he wasn’t a good prospect anyway. In other situations however, DON’T DANCE AROUND PRICE. They have a right to ask and be answered and a good sales person can give them that answer. Use a range to weed out the wrong clients and help weed in the right ones”

Joanne Hernon

“This company may never be my clients but the good news is that I don’t want everyone to be my client. Seems weird to some to say that in this economy but I believe there is still enough business to go around. I want to work with the right clients for my business”

Steve Bent

“The proposition and sales close happen all at once, WAY too quick to get the customer’s buy-in to your process! As consultants my view is we sell in steps, gotta sell the meeting first! If I get in the door, I’m pretty confident it’s a done deal. BUT that means that the real selling part is getting in the door, so we gotta sell! That sales process is the same if you are selling a premium car, or the idea of a meeting - it’s all selling.

I aim to take control, and most importantly not deliver any idea of what I do (unless they ask “credential based” questions first, which occassionally happens. In which case I give background but don’t get drawn into how I work!) and then question, question question!

Obviously it gives call control, and I also find it’s hard for them to get away, maybe because at that stage they don’t want to: I haven’t said no, and actually demonstrating my interest in HIM”

Hank Trisler

“It’s far more important to help people behave as they don’t currently behave, than it is to teach them something they don’t currently know. If you’d like to chat about how we might accomplish that, I’d be happy to do so. If you’re afraid I’m going to “pitch” you and waste your time, I respect that, but I can’t really help you until we get to chat a bit”

Dave Kurlan

“Shouldn’t we be asking, “if I give you a proposal, without first meeting you and further exploring why your salespeople are struggling, then I am no better than the salespeople you have since that’s what they’re probably doing - generating quotes and proposals and wondering why they aren’t getting the business. Do you want to fix that problem or perpetuate it?”

Chris Howie

“Clearly he didn’t (at this stage!) want to spend a lot of time with each supplier, so why not have a conversation on the phone and then put together a ball-park figure? as I’m guessing he just wants to know if it is likely he will be able to afford you.

I think the key here is how the customer wants to do business and adapting your style to match theirs”

……………………………………….A BIG thank you to one and all for their input.

Over at TSE

Still time to register for tomorrow’s webinar over at Top Sales Experts:

How to Close More Sales by Shortening Your Sales Cycle with Dave Kurlan
Thursday May 21st 2009 1:00 PM EASTERN

It is just $59.50 to register here but of course, you have choices - you always have choices: You can become a TSE VIP Member here for just $25 per year and listen in for FREE - in fact, as a VIP Member you can listen in to the other 100 webinars we are presenting this year for FREE too - now that is a “No-brainer”

Btb Guest Author

Christian Maurer

Yes, but not in the form we know and practice selling today. This is one of my takeaways from the round table discussion between Nigel Edelshain, Jonathan Farrington, Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson and Dave Stein over at the Top Sales Experts. Especially “order takers” and ‘glib talkers” will have a bleak future according to Jonathan Farrington. Intelligent strategic orchestrators and business advisors looking to develop long term allies however will have a bright future according to him. Jill Konrath seconded that she hopes that sales is really changing that much.

So we should expect a lot of organizational transformation within sales forces. However, and this is my second take away, the salespeople are not the primary target for this transformation. The sales profession -if we want to use this term despite the fact that from a scientific standpoint ’sales’ is not yet a profession- faces not only a leadership crisis but a disaster as Dave Stein put it.

The transformation has to start at the very top with company leaders. They should get rid of the myths that super salespersons make good sales managers and that the necessary competences come with the title. Sales Management is an occupation in itself requiring different specific skills than those of a sales superstar.

Relying just on tribal wisdom, where newly appointed sales managers draw on what they have observed their own managers doing, will not bring the desired result as it is very likely that these managers were not properly prepared for the job either. In addition their understanding of selling and of their job role might be outdated and not fit in today’s unforgiving economic context.

In my own opinion there will be no room left for purely action and result oriented managers trying to manage outcomes. It makes little difference if they rely on data from their own home grown spreadsheets or on sophisticated analytical CRM tools in their attempt to manage these outcomes. Outcomes are lagging indicators even if they come in the disguised form of forecasts. Management actions based on these metrics will always be too little too late. The future belongs to sales managers being able to interpret leading indicators helping them to derive coaching needs of their sales people.

The panelist were all in agreement that being able to coach people is a very essential skill for successful sales managers going forward.. There is however a huge skill gap with current sales managers. Linda Richardson’s re-edited book on this subject will help fill this gap. As a questions from a listener indicated, a significant number of sales managers has though not only a skill gap but an outright attitude problem towards coaching. Let’s hope for them that they can be convinced by appropriate business cases to avoid being phased out.

The dilemma for preparing sales managers for their job is though deeper. While a lot has been written with the salesperson in mind, there is a lack of a body of knowledge from which sale managers can be taught how to do their job. This is the reason why already three years ago, I started my blog with the sales executives and managers in mind.

Christian Maurer, The Sales Executive Resource, is an independent sales effectiveness consultant, trainer and coach. He has a proven track record of helping to increase the productivity of large, global B2B sales organizations. For the last ten years Christian has consulted and coached hundreds of sales executives and managers on how to plan and execute their sales strategies by focusing on process management rather than trying to manage results. Visit Christian ’s website: http://ultimatesalesexecresource

In the news

Dave Stein asks “How Do You Fix Sales Ineffectiveness?” This is a BIG BIG question and has already resulting in much debate. As Dave points out “There is a proven path.  The answers are there for everyone to see.  There are companies you can read about and observe that have achieved sales excellence. So, recession aside, why is sales as a profession and function, losing ground?” - I strongly suggest you check it out.

Clayton Shold is in conversation with fellow Top Sales Expert, Jonathan London over at Salesopedia, about the “Upside To Recession Selling”

Top 10 Sales Articles has just announced the “Top Sales Article Of The Month” for April. This a truly great sales resource with articles on every conceivable sales topic.

Over at TSE

The new Top Sales Experts (Public Group) over at LinkedIn is developing into a very lively community, with lots of really interesting discussions - to join us, simply click below.

This is a three-part post. Parts 2 and 3 are directly related.

Part 1 - Listen To

Last Thursday, after rushed home from a meeting and grabbing a quick cuppa, I settled down in front of my PC and signed into a TSE webinar called “The Sales Leadership Imperative”

I knew that this webinar was going to be good, because of the quality of the presenters.

Jonathan Farrington is Chairman of The Sales Corporation, based in London & Paris, and is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant.

Keith Rosen is the president of Profit Builders and is the Executive Sales Coach™ that top salespeople and managers call first to attract more prospects, close more sales and develop a team of top-performing sales champions.

Just over an hour later, I took off my head-set. My own knowledge bank had increased substantially. That wasn’t good, I thought – That was great.

Now, this is what self-directed learning is all about. As an established sales trainer, I consider myself to know a lot about selling, sales management and sales leadership. Yet, during this hour, I had learnt so much – there were simply some stunning insights.

The guys dealt with a range of sales leadership issues including:

• Identifying and leveraging the uniqueness of each member of the sales team.
• Connecting with and motivating your team during each interaction
• Recruit, retain and motivate top salespeople and turnaround under-performers inside 30 days

I would like to take this opportunity to recommend this webinar to you, in the strongest possible terms - it is simply TOP CLASS.

To join TSE, click here

To register for upcoming webinars, or to hear achieved webinars - simply click on the link below.

On Thursday April 30th 2009 at 6pm GMT, join TSE expert Christian Maurer for “Where is Your Revenue Growth to Come From?”

Part 2 – Join Up

Sales Leadership Ireland is a new LinkedIn group set up especially for Irish sales community. The focus of this new group is simple, to help sales professionals and sales leaders sell more.

We intend to network both off and on-line, we now have 124 members, and we want more; so if you are involved in sales and business development - please join us.

Part 3 – And Contribute

We have just put up our suggestions for our first SLI meet-up, The Changing World in Sales - “Buyers are not buying”

A practical look at how companies and sales people might respond to the current challenges and opportunities in the market.

SECTION 1: Interactive sessions with Speakers (1 hour)

Structure: 2 to 3 speakers on Key Topics providing practical information that can be applied quickly. 15 minutes each, generating interaction with the group with questions and discussion.

Some Suggested Key Topics:

- Removing the New Bottlenecks in today’s Sales Processes

- Bigger Pipelines, More Prospects, Better Qualification, Meeting Customer Needs

- Building New Channels to the Customer

- Engaging with Customers through New Media

SECTION 2: Key Challenges Roundtables (1 hour)

Structure:

A chaired session to identify the key challenges in today’s markets, assigning selected challenges to groups and to respond with potential solutions.

Steps:

a) Whiteboard / FlipChart suggestions from the entire group

b) Select top 4 or 5– allocate to groups, depending on numbers in attendance

c) 4/5 Roundtables/Groups decide on chairs/spokesperson

d) Discuss and FlipChart the suggested actions to meet the challenges

e) Spokesperson shares with the whole group

A session report could then be issued to the Linked Group Discussion.

So again, please join us on Linkedin, we would love to have you. Get stuck in and come along to our first meet up

Here is a little more detail on a second TSE 2.0. feature.

Introducing Top Sales Experts 2.0 How-To Guides.

Our How-To Guides come in Video, Audio, and Article formats.

This “How to” section can be likened to a sales encyclopaedia that contains practical applications for every aspect of the sales role. As the demands placed on front-line sales professionals grow with their ever-increasing responsibilities to perform under high-pressured situations, finding quick solutions becomes vital.

You can select a technique from a huge range of topics that enable you to grasp a core understanding about how to implement each technique, easily and efficiently. Each of these techniques has been categorised into twelve core sections.

• Account Management
• Business Development
• Cold Calling
• Marketing
• Negotiation
• Objections
• Presentations
• Prospecting
• Qualification
• Recruitment
• Sales Leadership
• Self Improvement

To improve your user experience we have also added icons beside each title to let you know what format the How to Guide is in.

Imagine for a moment that you have just come off the phone with a key customer. She tells you that your competitor is very keen to win her business and has offered a fantastic price. What do you do? How best to handle the situation?

Now imagine that at the click of a mouse, you can get specific advice on how to handle this exact situation from internationally acclaimed experts, people like Jill Konrath, Jonathan Farrington, Christian Maurer and Steve Martinez.

That’s what the TSE How-To Guides are, practical advice from the best at your fingertips in real time.

Yesterday was Saint Patricks day and the TSE Daily Interview featured 2009 Stevie Award winner for Sales Education Leader of the year, TSE very own Keith Rosen.

Steve talks about why sales managers need to make a fundamental change, and coach process rather than result. Make no mistake, this is brilliant advice.