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How to Create a Value Added Sales Culture by Tom Reilly ©Copyright 1998 Time and again, sales managers ask me what they can do to help promote a value added sales culture in their organization. My response typically is, Are you willing to pay the price to create a value added sales culture? This generally draws a surprised look from many of my clients. They then ask me to elaborate. I point out that there are five things that they can do to create this value added sales culture and as you read this article I would again pose the question to you. How much of a commitment will you make as a sales manager or business owner to create this value added sales culture? Hold Regular Sales Meetings Regular sales meetings are a great way to reinforce the value added philosophy. In these meetings, salespeople can discuss success stories, why they were successful, and share these secrets with each other. They can also discuss the situations in which they weren't successful and help each other avoid making the same mistakes. Sharing these success stories has a motivational benefit for salespeople because they get an opportunity to brag about some of the things that they are most proud of. Additionally, sales meetings offer a perfect opportunity to introduce new training topics. As a manager, you don't have to conduct all these meetings yourself. You can assign key salespeople different topics to present during the sales meeting. They can learn as they teach. Joint Call Activity The research on curbstone coaching proves that it is one of the most effective ways for sales managers to train salespeople. When you make a joint call with sales reps, you demonstrate to your salespeople that you consider them a valuable part of your organization and are willing to invest the time with them and the customer to prove that. It's a wonderful training opportunity because you get a chance to see firsthand how your salespeople perform on the firing line. You also get a chance to ensure the message they're communicating directly with the customer is consistent with the message that you communicate through your other marketing efforts. Sixty-eight percent of top management in customer organizations also indicate that they enjoy meeting their counterparts from the supplier. Compensation What type of flexibility do you have in your compensation system? As a rookie salesman, I was paid my commission on gross revenue rather than gross margin. In my case, that led to gross ignorance. I couldn't have cared less if we made a lot of profit on something. I was paid based on how much I sold. Literally, we could have given away the product and I still would have made a commission. If you want salespeople to sell at higher margins, you need to reinforce this with your compensation package. Reinforce either through commissions on margin or set bonus targets based on increased profitability. Collateral Support In our sessions on value-added selling, I give salespeople a number of ideas for different collateral pieces they can create themselves or management can create for them to use as sales pieces with customers. The first is a VIP List. This stands for Value In Purchasing. This is a list of all the value added extras that your company brings to the table. It includes people value, product value and company value. The focus is pre-sale and post-sale value. This piece can be an elaborate, multicolor brochure or simply a listing on your company letterhead. In any case, it's one more piece of evidence to your salespeople that you're committed to this philosophy. The Customer's Bill of Rights is also a nice literature piece for salespeople to use on a sales call. It lays out for the customer what they can expect from you as a supplier. To create this Bill of Rights, ask and answer this question: What six things can our customers expect from us? Also, I encourage you to look at your company information kits and how your salespeople put together proposals. The vast majority of organizations with whom I work can really use some help in this area. They need to beef up the perceived value of their proposals. Fundamentally, look at the presentation kits your salespeople use right now and ask these questions: Are they sexy? Do they have flash? Do they splash? Do they pop? Do they jump out at the customer? Do they have enough sizzle? These questions focus on the perceived value of the collateral pieces that your salespeople use. Patience Of the five things you can do to help create the value added sales culture, Number Five is perhaps the most difficult. You must be patient. Peter Drucker has often criticized American management for having a short-term, instant gratification thirst for results. To create the value added sales culture, you must forego the immediacy that most of us, as business owners or managers, really crave. Give it time to develop and work. Your impatience sends the wrong message to your sales force. Remember, in creating the value added sales culture, you're turning a battleship not a jet ski. Next Value-Added Selling Article Tom Reilly is president of Tom Reilly Training, a St. Louis based firm specializing in training salespeople and sales managers. He is author of eleven books including: Value-Added Selling, Coaching for Sales Success, Customer Service Is More Than a Department, Crush Price Objections, How to Sell and Manage in Tough Times and Tough Markets, and Get Out of The Wagon and Help Me Pull This Thing. For more information, contact: Tom Reilly Training, 171 Chesterfield Industrial Boulevard, Chesterfield, MO 63005 (636) 537-3360 or visit his website www.TomReillyTraining.com |
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