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Strengthening Your Sales Team By Improving Their Tactical or Process Skills |
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Written by Jim Pancero
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Article #6 in our 9 Article Series
Welcome to our sixth article in the series “You Can Always Sell More: How To Improve Any Sales Force!”
Evaluating, And Improving A Sales Person’s Tactical or Process Selling Skills and Abilities
In our fifth article we covered the first six questions of the free twenty question sales evaluation (available at GreatSalesSkills.com) that focused on your operational or day to day selling skills. In this article we will continue our discussion of the twenty question sales evaluation by reviewing the questions that cover the tactical or process selling skills of your sales team.
Evaluating, And Improving A Sales Person’s Tactical or Process Selling Skills and Abilities
Tactical skills include your ability to understand and control the steps and structures of your selling process. Successful tactical selling skills include your understanding of how to maintain and grow your business, how to manage your selling process, and your effectiveness in maintaining and influencing your customers. Honing your tactical skills is one of the critical drivers (along with “Strategic” skills) capable of increasing your competitive advantage.
Of all the skills of selling, the two most critical Tactical areas to improve include how you sell new prospects and how you maintain and grow your existing customers.
Are You Effectively Maintaining and Growing Your Best Customers?
The best way to increase your sales is to not lose the stuff you already have. The stability of a territory (i.e. low account turnover) is directly related to the ongoing proactive support offered to existing customers. It is also directly related to how you maximize your use of your sales support team (senior management, technical support, etc). What can be done to improve the “best practices” of how you and your entire team respond to customer’s problems?
Are you able to predict, and react before even receiving a customer complaint? The sooner and faster you can react to these situations the less stressed your customer will be and the more loyal they will be to you and your company. One way to increase your ability to predict potential problems is by increasing your communication with a wider number of individuals and departments. Talking to more individuals within important accounts can help you identify, and fix problems more efficiently than you do now.
Also consider meeting with your entire sales team to define your “best practices” of proactively managing and supporting your existing customers. Analyze scenarios when you have been successful and when you have failed in resolving customer problems.
Develop a multi-step plan for the entire year for important existing accounts. Most reps only have a “next best sales call” mentality hoping their customer tells them what to do next. Are you thinking, and planning the entire sales year to maximize your impact and competitive advantage? What do you plan to do for them different in the first quarter compared to the second, third and fourth?
What are the next three applications or business opportunities available for you within each of your major accounts? What is your planned timing to bring in your senior management or technical support experts? Who are the next two management (or higher) levels you want to get to in each account? What kinds of customer training and demonstration sessions do you want to conduct?
Are You Successfully Generating Your Best New Business Opportunities?
Are you a “rainmaker” making things happen in your territory or are you just a “weather forecaster” only predicting what you expect might happen? There are two acceptable definitions of “New Business” prospecting. One definition is looking for additional business within an existing account by selling to other departments, locations, or selling additional business applications.
A second definition of “New Business” prospecting involves you going out and finding new companies to sell. How many new account sales calls have you made in the last 30 days? Successful new company prospecting has to be an ongoing, proactive, and continuous effort. You cannot just prospect once a year. What is your new business prospecting plan for the next year?
Consider “Grouping your work” for your new business telephone prospecting effort. Don’t just sit down to call a single new prospect, sit down and call 10 or 20 at a time.
Also consider organizing a new business prospecting “Best practices” plan for the year. Focus on how your “new business” plan includes planning “multiple moves ahead” for new business prospects for the entire year (“What will I do different in January compared to April or September?”). Also include targeted industries or customer groups, sample voice mail message scripts and identified best individuals to approach with new business ideas.
In our next article we will complete our coverage of the sales evaluation by discussing how to evaluate and increase the strategic selling skills of your team.
Want even more ideas? Then read my book “You Can Always Sell More - How To Improve Any Sales Force.” This 300+ page book outlines the entire process described in these articles. Call 800-526-0074 or go to GreatSalesSkills.com.
I congratulate you on working on strengthening your team’s selling skills and success. These skill building ideas will help strengthen the skills and competitive advantage of your sales team. May you enjoy the process.
Reprint with permission “You Can Always Sell More – How To Improve Any Sales Force” ISBN #0-471-73915-4 John Wiley & Sons.
Copyright 2008 Jim Pancero, Inc.
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Jim Pancero |
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Jim Pancero has been directly involved in "business-to-business" selling for over 35 years. Six of those years were spent successfully selling the largest computer systems for the Data Processing Division of the IBM Corporation. During Jim's prestigious IBM career he earned several awards including the coveted "Golden Circle" designation annually awarded to the top 5% of their international sales force.
In 1982, Jim founded his advanced sales training and consulting company. Since then, Jim has conducted over 2,500 presentations or consulting days for 500 companies providing a career average of five events per client. Over 90% of Jim's clients utilize his services more than once. www.pancero.com
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