In the
Media
Selling
to Salespeople Can Be a Tough Challenge
Appeared the Dallas Morning News, September 3, 200
1
By Carla D'Nan Bass
Imagine Playing golf with Tiger Woods or cooking a
meal for celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.
That's what salespeople say they go through in
pitching business products to colleagues.
There's a whole range of goods and services that are
geared to help salespeople get better at what they do─ software packages, sales training courses and
consulting services. And the professionals who choose to push these
products have to be wary of their audience's expertise.
"If a salesperson considers themselves to be good,
then they are aware that they are selling to someone who knows how it
should be don," said sale consultant Maura Schreier-Fleming of
Dallas. "They understand that they have to be clearer about their
message."
Ms. Schreier-Fleming knows the risks. She works
with sale professionals to hone their skills and must sell them on her
services.
Many of the new products for sales professionals are
computer-based and are designed to help them track customers, find
prospects or deliver products faster.
The days of sales workers keeping track of prospects
and customers on a set of index cards are long gone, said David Fine,
sales manager of the Edison Group. The Dallas-based consulting firm
sells customer-relationship management systems.
The customer-relationship market may be worth more
than $16.8 billion a year by 2003, up for $2.3 billion in 1998, according
to strategy analysis firm AMR Research Inc. of Boston.
To sell sales products to salespeople, it's often
necessary to start at the top, Mr. Fine said.
You then "drill down to the daily users, normally a
sales manager or a vice president of sales," he added.
Mr. Fine acknowledged that there's a lot of pressure
in making a pitch to sales executives ─
many of whom have extensive sales experience ─ but he said they often show
more empathy than customers who have never had to make a cold
call.
"They experience what we experience," Mr. Fine
said. "They know how tough it is. Most salespeople just cut to
the chase. They are more educated buyers in that they don't play the
games."
Ms. Schreier-Fleming said that selling to other sales
professionals can turn into a competition.
"When you are selling to someone who is that long-term
salesperson, many times you encounter people who are thinking, 'OK, let's
see what' she's got. I know it all.'" Ms. Schreier-Fleming
said.
But sales workers also are open to trading tips or
learning from another's approach.
"I think that the best salespeople have that
attitude," Ms. Schreier-Fleming said.
Paul Daniels Jr. said one of the favorite aspects of
his job is selling to sales workers. "Personally, it's been one of
the best selling experiences in my 12-year career," said Mr. Daniels,
director of enterprise sales at OneSource Information Services in
Dallas. His product is called Business Browser, which sales workers
can use to research and find prospects, among other applications.
"Salespeople are always looking for a competitive
advantage ─ a better way to find
penetration points... and they are hungry for a product that helps them do
that," Mr. Daniels said.
He said sales workers don't often compare notes on
their craft. His pitches allow them to do that.
"If I do run into someone on a casual basis we may
talk about war stories, but for the most part we have a limited amount of
time and we want to spend 50 percent of the time talking about what they
are trying to do," Mr. Daniels said. "I need to be sensitive that
she or he has given me that amount of time and I have to use that
wisely."
Mr. Daniels said his audience also allows him to
streamline the selling process.
"Frankly, it's a lot easier selling to a salesperson
than to people at large," he said. "We both cut to the chase."
Reprinted with
permission of the Dallas Morning News.
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