Once they are aware of the issues facing a company, salespeople
must develop solutions. That calls for more and different sales
training. Salespeople need less training on products and features,
and more on how CEOs and other high-level executives address the
problems they face. "The product training is great, but what
they really need is to understand more about what is driving the
company they're trying to sell to," says Kieran.
"They need to be able to think like an executive."
One of Cavanaugh's gambits is to try to demonstrate that an
investment in his products and programs will provide an
attractively positive return. "We're going to do a
cost-benefit analysis with them to show that if they spend X,
they'll get Y in return," he says. For example, a company
with low employee morale and poor attendance would be shown how one
of Cavanaugh's programs could cut the number of temporary
employees needed to replace absent workers. From there, it's
straightforward to quantify cost savings in fewer temp salaries
and, hopefully, justify the buy.
To think of that kind of objection-beater, salespeople need
training in general business management and in specific problems
facing their target companies and industries. Kieran recommends
coaching salespeople on competitive pressures, regulatory issues,
supplier conflicts and other sensitive issues executives encounter.
Says Kieran, "If you take a 360-degree view of what that
company is facing, you can get pretty adept at figuring out what
[the executive is] going through."
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Mixing It Up
Some experts say the fence between marketing and sales has to come
down. "Salespeople used to be take leads from marketing or
generate their own from cold-calling," says Singer. "But
the days of cold-calling are numbered. Today, a salesperson needs
to know how to do direct marketing, how to write a headline, how to
do a sales letter, and how to generate leads without picking up the
phone."
Singer recommends salespeople get training in conducting e-mail
campaigns, publishing client newsletters, writing print and radio
ad copy and more. "It's always been sales on one side and
marketing on the other," he says. "But marketing is the
same thing as sales. It's just sales in a different medium, in
print, audio or e-mail."
McClennan echoes Singer's call for more marketing-oriented
salespeople. He's training his to develop marketing lists and
use e-mail client letters created with contact management software
to stay in touch efficiently with large numbers of prospects.
"We've also found we need to make sure our marketing and
sales [efforts] are well-coordinated," he adds. "Our
salespeople need to understand what the marketing message is and
see that it finds its way into sales scripts."
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