Seven Harsh Truths About Sales

My recent series, The 5 Activities of Successful Salespeople covered all the critical areas of activities for 'sales', and hopefully you found it very helpful.

Here are seven harsh truths and blunt realities that I didn't specifically state in that series, but will cover here. The caveat being that these are aimed at manufacturing companies, companies that want to sell to manufacturers, or B2B sales.

1. Any activity you do, or are asked to do, or that you task your salespeople to do, outside of the 5 defined areas of activities in that series does not help them or you and is 'noise' and a distraction that keeps you (or them) from doing what it is you (or they) should be doing.

   
   

2. If the person driving or managing your sales team (perhaps a VP or Director of Marketing, or Chief Revenue Officer, or even a Sales Manager) has never successfully sold your product to a customer, you are probably finding yourself climbing uphill every week and in every meeting, lacking relevant support, and tasked with a lot of things that you do just because you have to.

   
   

3. 'Sales' is a 360 degree skill and activity. High achieving sales people know how to sell to their bosses and executive teams, internally to the engineering and customer support groups, as well as to all the levels within their customers' organization. "Selling" to your boss doesn't mean asking them to let you offer a price reduction to close a deal, it means helping them understand what a certain deal or customer means to your company and how that one deal can be leveraged profitably in the near term and long term. "Selling" to your engineering or customer support group means helping them understand how a new feature helps make your product better, or how what is perceived to be "the customer's problem" is in reality your opportunity to excel and earn a loyal, long term customer.

   
   

4. Your CEO needs to be your best sales support tool and a relentless sales advocate - both internally and externally. (Nothing important in a business happens until a customer agrees to buy something). Yes, a CEO needs to be a lot more than that, and has to understand what is important in every area of the business, but for the sales team to excel, its critical that the CEO has a direct understanding of what it takes to make a sale and satisfy a good customer.

   
   

5. The best salespeople are not the best technical talkers or convincers, they're usually the best listeners and the most trusted guides and resources. Yes, its very important to know how to actually use the product and demonstrate it in a way that makes specific sense to your customer, but the opportunity to show that is earned through great listening skills and understanding the problem through the customers' eyes.

   
   

6. Segmenting the sales process (cold callers, lead qualifiers, product demonstrators, deal closing, onboarding and fulfillment) is not the right approach to sell to manufacturers. Filling a wide hopper on one side and managing deal flow through it to a small trickle on the other side may work in some industries, or perhaps B2C, but I wouldn't bet on that approach in the manufacturing or B2B marketplace.

   If you haven't already read the series, here's a link to it.

   The 5 Activities of Successful Salespeople

   
   

   For additional reading on the topic, check out: Entrepreneurial Epiphanies: "the Company with the Best Customers, Wins." and Entrepreneurial Epiphanies: "Relationship Trumps Technology"