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Many sales leaders ask me, “Ramez, how can I get the sales results from training and developing my sales teams?”
Now, if you’re a sales leader, sales manager, if you’re a supervisor or if you are a sales rep yourself, aspiring to lead others at one point in time, this video is for you.
The whole idea came where I used to be a sales leader I have my own direct sales force.
And I figured that one key to my success depended on my ability to empower my team to go and deliver better results than what I can deliver.
So I had to impart upon them, certain ideas, tools, and knowledge, and they had to go out there and utilize them.
So how to make this happen?
This is what I am going to share with you in this series of videos.
This part I’m going to focus only on the first two steps of the entire methodology, which are the, “as is analysis” and the “customization”.
So let’s talk about the “as is analysis”.
So typically you can do online surveys for your teams, and you can do some interviews.
Especially if you are the director and you have a team leader, and then that have their own sales force.
You can interview some of the reps and you can interview some of the team leaders, which will give you certain insights in terms of what’s going on.
And the last thing you can do is conduct certain field visits yourself.
Now, of course, this is what we do as an organization, in being able to map out, what we call “as is analysis”.
The second phase is the “customization”. And the key here is from the “as is analysis”.
Being able to customize, not just necessarily just the content.
Which many times the content is very standard, with some tweaks and adjustments.
But the biggest customization and quite sincerely for me, is the time that takes the most effort, is the finding of customized stories that can bring certain content to life.
And that happens through reading and researching and looking at the various scenarios that you have received.
And the best ones is when you have observed certain scenarios and you can bring them to life.
I’ll give you an example.
I was with the food service sales representative, and I observed a certain field visit.
Now, this is what happened. Okay, I was with them and in the markets. And the customer was telling him how he had a problem with his bread.
Yes, you know, the bread to make sandwiches.
He goes: “I have grown so much and I am not able to find one bakery to supply me with all my needs and sometimes I have three or four bakeries supplying me. And even from the same bakery, I have breads that look in different shapes. I cannot offer a client that, you know, a table that say they have six or seven guests that each order a banquette and I give them seven different looking baguettes. It’s just a problem for me”.
The sales representative did not say a word.
But of course, I copied that and he just kept into his sales pitch to what we called “telling mode”.
So later on in the training program, I asked permission to use the story.
I said: “Do you mind if I use the stories”
He said: “Yes go ahead”
I said, “Do you remember when this, this happened?”
He said: “yes”
I said: “Well, what was the customer trying to tell you?”
He didn’t know
And I said: “Well, let me, let me share with you, If you want to ask why you know. Well, not why, if you would’ve asked, well, how is this impacting your business?”
He would have told you, not having consistent baguettes makes the customer unhappy.
It makes his operation more complicated, he’s got wastage and so forth and so on.
I said: “If only you’re able to extract such information from your client, how would this help you sell?”
He goes: “Oh, I can sell him our frozen solutions, which enhances his 1, 2, 3, 4, so consistency, decreasing of wastage, no need for labors to prove the bread or whatever”, et cetera
I said: “Well, you see, now you got the answer.”
But before it was just a mystery box, right?
So that being said. The customization is really key. And so ensure to do the proper needs analysis.
And of course get ready with as many examples and stories to bring the concept to life.
What needs to happen is the sales representative need to be able to say:
“Oh, this person is talking to me, I’m understood. They listened to what I told them, and now I’m getting certain programs, certain knowledge to help me with my problems so that I can go out there and succeed.”
And when you can do that, you’re on your way to sell more, sell faster and profitably.
Until next time.
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