In our first article in this series, we said product knowledge was the bedrock of selling. From this sound foundation flows the ability to present solutions, grow enthusiasm, and drive sales. Like a fresh spring in the desert wilderness, product knowledge pushes to the surface. And, just like the spring water, the most productive flows are channeled to the place where they do the most good. In sales, a well-developed process serves to direct product knowledge to the most productive utilization. Think of this, unless the product knowledge is presented to the right customers, with a specific set of corresponding needs and an appreciation for the value provided by the seller, resources are wasted. Miss the mark with any of these and the sales growth is compromised.   Build accelerating factors into the stream of salesperson activities and the sales number grows faster. Insert habits which improve the probability of closing a higher percentage of orders result. ...

Accelerating Territory Growth One Individual at a Time   One first impression,one client at a time. Building a territory is like building a network of friends.   Let’s think for a moment about the friendships we have nurtured over the years.   If you’re like me, you didn’t just wake up to discover a pile of friends under the Christmas tree.   Instead, they grew based on shared experiences, time together and commonality of background.   Amongst your best friends are classmates, coworkers, neighbors and people met through some service group.   You met them, you spent time together, or you went through some joint activity.   Maybe you shared the mutual burden of an overly demanding professor.   Or you worked together on a difficult fund raiser at your church.   The point is you intermingled in a series of joint activities.   Let’s drill deeper.   Your timeline for establishing a relationship may have looked like th...

Product Knowledge – The foundation of selling In preparation for this discussion, I asked a number of successful distributor salespeople to stop, step back and relive their first days in their territory.   For many of these folks, this was quite a task in and of itself.   Each had a number of things on their minds for the first days of selling.   But, as we pealed back the years; they all said the same thing.   Early on, I had a heck of time deciding exactly what I needed to know.   Even for those who launched their careers based on Engineering (or some other technical) Degrees, being conversant on a whole range of products was daunting. My next set of conversations took place with a group of highly motivated young sales people who were making great progress but could still be easily referred to as “newbies” in the selling game. One by one, they shared the overwhelming feeling of doubt faced around understanding the tens of thousands of products in th...

The mix of good habits and even better planning will be rewarded! We’ve all got to start somewhere Contrary to popular belief, good salespeople don’t grow on trees.   Nor can you drive by the local mission and pick the one with the best lettered “will work for food” sign.   Lastly, I want to drive a stake through the heart of that hundred year old myth, that certain parents beget “natural born sales wizards”.   On the contrary, good salespeople are created, molded, shaped, formed and trained.   Not so good salespeople can develop bad habits, learn the wrong kinds of behaviors and morph into non-performing drains on their employers. Unfortunately, our industry has a habit of tossing new guys the car keys, pointing to the territory and saying “go get ‘em, kid,” than providing any kind of real training.    This was an issue back in our dad’s day, a mistake in our day and a gargantuan mistake today.   Here’s why.   According to the research...

I practice "mind mapping" even though a lot of these turn out looking a little more like flow-charts than true mind maps.  This came out of a client discussion last week.  Do others find value in this type of chart? Distributor Planning Made Easy. Check out our Distributors Annual Planning Workbook: http://amzn.com/1481196448

I’m Already Working 12 Hours a Day, Do You Want Me Selling or Planning? Many distributors have discovered that it takes a very long time to establish new customer relationships.  Others find that in spite of success with existing products, their organization’s ability to launch related products necessary for long-term business health are hampered.   The simple truth is our industry has slowly adapted a dangerous habit.   We practice a reactive sales model.  It’s not an immediate threat, but long term, it’s crippling.  Here’s how it works.  An existing customer calls with a question or support issue on some past purchase.  The salesperson reacts to this issue immediately.   Along the way some excellent customer support is provided.  The customer compliments the seller and potentially rewards this behavior with another purchase.  Everything sound good so far?  The unfortunate part of this equation takes a while to manifest i...