In the Media
The Majors are Right
Appeared February 2004 in Jobbers World
Is low price the only thing you offer your customers?
Then you have Kmart shoppers for customers. But Kmart is
bankrupt-not a great role model for success. The majors are right.
They want jobbers to upgrade their sales staff. What the majors want to
happen is a beginning. The outcome will be good for both the
jobber’s and the major’s business. Here’s why and what also needs to
happen.
There is no such thing as a natural born salesperson. Some
salespeople think they can sell without additional training. They’re
wrong. Their idea is to talk their customer into submission, but
they will quickly find that this way of selling will only create resistant
prospects. The biggest myth in selling is that great salespeople are the
best talkers. They’re not. Great salespeople are great listeners.
They learn how to master this skill. They hear what their customers
mean. They speak in a way that makes it easier for their customers
to listen to them, to understand their selling messages. That’s what
skilled listeners do. Then once they do talk, great salespeople ask
great questions. They learn this skill, too. Selling without
additional skills is like being a talented golfer and expecting great
performance without additional coaching. Good luck! With
coaching the golfer will reach a higher level of performance and do it
faster. They’ll avoid creating bad habits, too. It’s the same
with selling. That’s why added training is needed
now.
What’s an upgrade? Product knowledge and technical knowledge
are just two components of upgrading a sales staff. Certainly,
knowing about how the product performs is important knowledge that can be
used to sell the product. Yet too many salespeople who sell
technical products think that telling is selling. It’s not.
Just talking about a product’s increased oxidation stability will not sell
it to a customer. The majors need to provide the training that shows
how the technical aspects of the products they produce translate into
customer benefits. The majors should provide examples of how the
products will impact customers’ bottom lines. The majors need to
provide testimonials from satisfied users so the jobbers’ sales staffs can
sell more easily using these testimonials.
We’re in this together. Now that the majors want
jobbers to upgrade their sales staff, they shouldn’t expect the jobber to
do it alone. The majors need to provide the training and do it in a
way that meets the jobber’s budget and time constraints. Should you
use technology and conduct teleconferences that minimize the need for
travel? The majors could provide sales coaching via telephone which
could reinforce the technical training. At every meeting the major
hosts to discuss technical issues, they should provide sales training as
well. And mostly, make sure the major’s sales staffs receive the same
training that the jobbers’ staffs.
Just as in the past, selling requires creating a strong business
relationship with customers. Today, a business relationship alone is
not enough. Customers today do business with people they like who
also provide value. That’s what the majors are trying to do.
When jobbers work with them, both jobbers and their customers will
benefit.
Maura Schreier-Fleming works with business and sales professionals
on skills and strategies so they can sell more and be more productive at
work. She is the author of Real-World Selling for
Out-of-this-World Results which is available at
www.BestatSelling.com. She founded her company Best@Selling in
1997. You can reach her at 972.380.0200 or
info@Bestatsellling.com.
(c) Copyright 2004 Maura
Schreier-Fleming. All rights
reserved. |
