Challenge facing salespeople in 2019? (Part two)
Part Two - A fear of selling
So many sales teams I first encounter are full of salespeople with a fear of selling. I see a decline in the number of calls and frequently encounter the silent sales office, now this isn’t a dig at sales people far from it, let me explain.
As I have already said I see this a lot in sales teams across the country and it’s not surprising , when sales people are currently faced with a raft of negative perspectives relating to sales, they hear that social selling is the new way to sell and everything else is ineffective, cold calling is dead and no longer has a place in modern selling (this certainly isn’t new), prospects no longer take calls only skype, emails are no longer effective as people don’t read email anymore, prospects don’t have time to see sales people anymore so meetings are a waste of time, and so on. It is no wonder that sales people are so confused about how they should sell, what they should do and what they shouldn’t do.
There’s a few points I want to get across with this piece, number one is that usually every voice that claims that every other form of selling is finished and no longer effective and are claiming that this new form of selling is the nirvana of sales, the one true single way of selling, are in fact opening up themselves for failure. Which brings me to my second point, not that long ago there was a term in marketing often referred to as the marketing mix and a marketing strategy, a range of ways to market to a target audience, no the term may no longer be in vogue but the concept certainly still works and this is precisely how we should use these tools to create a sales mix or sales strategy.
Social selling, like all sales approaches is limited in isolation but when used as part of a strategy is hugely useful in modern selling, when used as part of an account development strategy, in preparation for a face to face or skype meeting, invaluable when identifying a key contact or a relevant angle when embarking on a lead generation campaign.
The second point is that I recently worked with a team that epitomised this challenge within its sales team, of the 6 people within the team, there were three that purely focused on social selling tools, they generated lots of interest and made sales, there were two other members of the team that focused entirely on a telephone approach they again made sales and the final team member had a preference for meetings and would resist selling anything until they had met face to face, the reality of this team was that they all made sales but lost out on many sales because they limited how they engage with their prospects by not using other selling avenues to make or progress sales, after a couple of days working with this team the penny dropped and once they embraced this and applied a variety of approaches their success increased.
The point I am making is that using a modern sales mix or sales strategy opens up the possibilities you have to sell more effectively, rather than being influenced that a new way of selling should replace all others, view it as a valuable addition to your armoury that enhances how you sell, because not all sales are the same, not all buyers are the same and different people respond to different ways of selling and communicating.
Until next time.