Can Someone Help Me Diagnose This Sales Call? I Don't Get It.

It's 7:00am, I'm busy disposing of email and getting my day started. I'm already on my second cup of coffee, the phone rings.....

Most of my clients and colleagues know I start my day in the "office" at 5:00am, so I am anticipating it is one of them.

Dave: Hello, this is Dave Brock.
Other Party (OP): May I speak to your office manager?
Dave: Well, my name is Dave Brock, I own the company so I guess I'm the office manager, how can I help you?
OP: I'm John Doe from XYZ company and I'd like to know when your office hours start.
Dave, slightly confused: Excuse me, who are you and what are you asking?
OP: I'm John Doe from XYZ company and I'd like to know when your office hours start.
Dave, still confused: Well, since we are speaking on the phone right now, clearly they have already started.
OP (I guess I should start calling him John Doe): OK, thank you. Good bye.
Dave, very confused: Wait a minute, can I ask you why you want that information?
OP (John): Well we are an IT services company...... I wanted to see if I could set an appointment to talk to you about your IT needs.......
Dave, no longer confused but now perplexed: Well, why didn't you ask?
OP (John): Well......... What's your name?
Dave: That's OK, thank you for calling, I'm not interested in your services.

I think that was supposed to be a prospecting call???? I've done thousands in my career and have seen lots of sales people doing them.

But I'm not really sure. John had reached me, I clearly identified myself as the person he probably wanted to talk to, but clearly he wasn't prepared to execute his prospecting call. Why did he make the call? What was he trying to accomplish? Is he aware of the impression he made? Is he being paid to do this?

Some things I think went wrong:

1. He didn't know anything about the company. Before I make calls, I use this new thing called Google.....(you know what I'm going to say).
2. When he reached me, he didn't clearly introduce himself and his reason for calling.
3. I'm not clear that he had a script, but he really wanted to know when we started work. Even if that is in the script, it seems that when he heard he had the right person on the phone he might launch into the reason for calling and asked for an appointment, but I had to pull it out of him.
4. I raised an objection (Why didn't you ask?)and didn't even try to respond.
5. He wasn't listening, I told him my name twice, but at the end of the call, he still was asking for my name.

Yes, I still make prospecting calls myself. I do my homework before I make the call, so I know a lot about the company, their situation, and, if possible, about the individual I call. So often, when I call, I reach voicemail--I'm prepared for handling that. Sometimes, I reach an assistant--I'm prepared for talking to assistants, and every once and a while, I actually reach the person I want to talk to---I leap on those opportunities. I want to capitalize on those few seconds I might actually be talking to a prospect, I want to use their time well, make a great impression, and make the first step in achieving my objective.

Do I have it wrong? Am I missing something? Am I being too critical.

Unfortunately, these days, I get too many calls like the one from John Doe---no wonder "cold calls" don't work.

Should Sales Professionals Be Certified?

First let's agree that many sales professionals (and others) are certifiable. My wife reminds me of this with every crazy idea I come up with. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about whether there should be a certification process for sales professionals.

Over the past week, I've raised a lot of debate with my Posts On Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture On The Future Of The Profession:

• Part 1: Sales issues.
• Part 2: General business/organizational issues that
  impact sales effectiveness.
• Part 3: Recommendations for the future.

Over at The Customer Collective, Donal Daly of the TAS Group, suggested we look at developing a Sales Certification platform to start doing something about the level of professionalism in sales. He has been generous in offering TAS Group resources in developing something. Others, Christian Maurer, Niall Devitt, Neil Warren, Dave Stein, Paul McCord, and others have weighed in on the topic.

It may be time to look at sales certification and how we might improve our practice---if only to save ourselves from ourselves.

Many professions are required certification/licensing to practice their professions. Doctors, Pharmacists, Lawyers, Accountants, even certain categories of Engineers are required to pass rigorous studies, testing, and proof of experience in order to practice. These requirements for certification are mandated legally and have central "certifying" bodies that set the standards and administer the certification process.

There are other types of certification that act like "Good Housekeeping Seals Of Approval," and indicate some level of training and experience "certified" by a sponsoring organization. In the IT world, Microsoft and Cisco certified people are highly sought after.

Many other professions offer "certifications," though I, somewhat cynically, think they are more oriented to maintaining membership (while they do have certain knowledge and ethics requirements).

For example, there are "Certified Management Consultant" and "Certified Professional Speaker" certifications. I've actually considered both, but when I start talking to current and professional customers about it, their responses were: "Say what?????" or "Who are they to tell me whether you are any good or not?" of "Never heard of it, who cares!"

There are actually several organizations that offer some kind of sales certification, but I have to admit that I've never asked any of the thousands of sales people I work with every year whether they are certified.

Recently, after all the corporate scandals, there have been people in the government and august organizations like Harvard, proposing some types of certification for executives.

With all this as background, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about "certification" --whether legally mandated or industry driven. I'm one who believes the tag line of an old joke "What do you call 200 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.....A good start!" We've seen lots of "questionable" practices by lawyers, accountants, doctors and others. Sometimes it means you jumped a series of hurdles, but it doesn't necessarily make you any better as a professional, more trustworthy, or more ethical.

Others--like the Microsoft and Cisco certifications sometimes seem to have greater value in enhancing a resume and getting a job. There is a level of knowledge, but there are equally knowledgeable, sometimes better people who have not gotten the certification.

And, in my own case, no one has ever asked me whether I am a Certified Management Consultant or Professional Speaker---though a frustrated customer did call me certifiable (reconfirming my wife's claims).

I do think we need to raise the level of professionalism in the practice of selling. I hear this from everyone I talk to--both on the sales side and customer side. While I'm not certain certification is the answer, I don't have any better ideas.

Perhaps we can start another discussion. What do you think? I'd love your comments. Even better, I put up a quick survey to collect opinions and ideas. It will take you no more than 5 minutes to complete. The survey has two tracks: What do we as sales professionals think? What do our customers think? Go take the survey, encourage your peers to take it, ask your customers to take it. I'll report the results in a few weeks.

Here's the link for the survey: Should Sales Professionals Be Certified?

Thanks both for your comments and for participating in the survey!

Strategic Partners---How Important Are They To Your Sales Strategies -- A Survey

Over the past 2 months, we have written a lot about Strategic Parnerships and Alliances as part of your sales strategies. Two of the posts are:

Sometimes All We Want Is Good Customers, Sometimes All Customrs Want Is Good Suppliers
If Your Suppliers Are In Trouble, Then You Are In Bigger Trouble

We've gotten a lot of queries and comments from people who have seen these articles. Many share our views that strong supply chain relationships are critical to successful implementation of their sales strategies. As a result of these conversations, we have decided to research this issue more deeply. We are looking at several issues that seem to have resonated with people:

• The importance of partnering and alliances as a part of their sales strategies.


• The importance of partnering as part of the vendor management strategies.


• The interrelationship of these issues in overall success of the
  organization.

To help us gather information about these critical issues. I'd like to invite you to participate in a short survey, Survey On Customer Partnering And Supply Chain Relationships. The survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete. Everyone completing the survey and requesting a copy of the results will get a copy of the report at no charge. We will be offering the results to others for $49.95.

Please take the time to complete this survey. All results are completely anonymous. Follow the link: Survey On Customer Partnering And Supply Chain Relationships.

Thanks for your help with this survey. It is open for anyone to take, please forward this mail to colleagues, customers, and suppliers who may be interested in this issue. We will close the survey roughly at the end of May and will publish the report in mid June.

Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture On The Future Of The Profession, Part 3 of 3 – What Do We Do?

If you’ve made it this far through the series of articles, you probably want to quit your sales job and become a hermit in the mountains. I’ve certainly created a bleak picture. Thank you for your patience and dligence in hanging in with me!

However, I am tremendously excited about being a sales professional and for the future of sales professionals. I think the dismal picture I’ve portrayed, also provides an opportunity for real progress and growth for sales professionals.

Note---I’m focused on a small audience—people who are or who are committed to becoming the highest levels of performance in sales. I’m not talking about people that sell. I am neither naïve enough, ambitious enough, now willing to waste my time on changing sales. As with every function, there will be a tremendous number of “schlock” peddlers (call a New Yorker for translation). There will also be a large number of people who are in the middle---I see great hope for them, but led by inspired sales professionals.

I think the problems and challenges provide the opportunity for true professionals and those that aspire to be professionals to separate themselves from the rest of people who peddle.

How do we improve, how do we focus on becoming truly effective and high performers? Where does the leadership responsibility lie? I believe each of us can take ownership in driving change.

First, we can't be naive, a lot of the structural and systemic issues I identified in Part 2 can't be fixed --- will take more people working together (within and organization or across organizations. But, we don't have to let these constrain us, we can still get a lot accomplished and drive a lot of change that will improve our effectiveness --- as groups, teams, or individuals. We can't let these constraints become excuses for non performance.

To be honest---at least from an organizational point of view, I am tempted to point the finger at management—not just sales management, but corporate management. I do believe that poor leadership or no leadership is one of the key reasons sales (and organizations) perform at a far lower level than they could. I think leaders must set better personal examples, invest in getting things done through their people---which means coaching and developing them. I believe they must fight the systemic issues that block them from driving sustained performance improvement.

At the same time, only the top executives will be able to have any significant impact on the systemic issues. What does this mean for most of sales management? If I got my wish, I would hope that sales managers focus on three things: Doing their jobs as leader/coaches. There are coaching opportunities in every meeting—just the questions you ask have a tremendous impact your team.

Second, rather than reacting, changing priorities and strategies on a daily basis; stick to your principles, processes, and tools. Use them, presumably you implemented them because you believed in the results they could produce, give them a chance to work, monitor, adjust, modify. Follow through on them, diagnose what’s working and what’s not working. There are a lot of good processes, tools, and programs out there. Choose those that work best for you and use them. Don’t become victim of the program du hour mentality.

Finally, execute your processes and lead with passion and excitement. Inspire your people, your peers, your management to follow your example.

Individual contributors have a responsibility as well. Seek to become the best in your profession. Constantly learn, seek out the best professionals you can find, network with them, and learn from them. Develop your own processes, or internalize your company’s selling processes—adapting them for your use. The processes and tools work! They produce tremendous results, learn how to leverage those results for yourself. Invest in planning and thinking. It will get you to your end goal more effectively and efficiently then by reacting to your competition, customer demands, or your management. Set an example in your own performance for your peers.

Whether you are a leader or individual contributor, becoming disciplined and process focused, committing to follow through on these, exploiting the tools produce results. Leverage these processes and tools, not because your management tells you to, but because they help you become more effective.

I don’t believe change only comes from the top. I believe change comes from committed, passionate people at all levels of the organization.

Thanks for your patience in working your way through my diatribe. I have not hit all the issues, I think I may have a bit of a warped view on many issues. My greatest hope is not that you agree with my ideas, but that it stimulates a healthy discussion. Your discussion and comments will be better than my rambling posts! If I'm off base, please correct me.

In case you started at the end and want to go back to the beginning, here are the two previous posts.

Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture On The Future Of The Profession, Part 1 of 3

Sales Force Ineffectiveness, Conjecture On The Future Of The Profession, Part 2 of 3 -- Not Just A Sales Problem