You’re Using Your Great-Grandfather’s Sales Process
The vast majority of American business-to-business salesforces are using a sales process that was first documented in 1893. I have read the 1893 edition of the NCR sales training manual and, tragically, it describes the process that many (if not most) American business-to-business salesforces are utilizing.
Impact on Sales
I also know that this outdated process actually suppresses the ability of the sales team to optimize their results. For instance, these outdated processes allow/encourage salespeople to engage in far too many non-sales activities.
Keep in mind that a business-to-business salesperson, on average, has about 173 selling hours available to him/her on a monthly basis. Anything that your processes cause your salespeople to direct their attention and effort away from selling reduce in direct mathematic proportion the ability of that salesperson to produce revenue.
Simply stated, if they spend half of the month doing non-sales administrative tasks, then their potential to produce new transactions is reduced in similar proportion.
The Problem with Prospecting
Another component of the outdated process that still has remnants in today’s activities is prospecting. Good old-fashioned cold-calling worked when yours truly was a rookie at IBM in 1970. But it doesn’t work nearly as well today as it did in those days.
Prospecting, as it’s applied by far too many sales organizations, is not selling but it’s searching for someone to sell to. Top-performing sales organizations recognize that prospecting should be done by someone other than the salesperson.
Sales Training Reinvented
We’re proud to announce the fact that we’ve created a new sales optimization/training program called Six Sigma Selling™. This is a breakthrough in terms of marrying the precision of Six Sigma manufacturing with the art of sales and sales management. The result is Six Sigma Selling™.
When you embrace this new process, productivity will go up (on average, by 36%), revenue and profits will parallel that improvement, while interpersonal stress regarding future revenue, commissions and profits will go down.
The Benefit of Change
In a phrase, when you change the process, you change the results. Don’t keep banking your head against the same obstacles as your father, grandfather and even great-grandfather handled.
If you’d like to know more about how Six Sigma Selling™ produces spectacular improvements in revenue, please click the link above. I’ve prepared a six-minute video on the page that will explain how we have reinvented sales training and are producing spectacular, permanent results for sales organizations like yours.
I urge you to invest six minutes to learn how your productivity can increase by 36% by changing the processes that you utilize. As always, I wish you…
Good Luck and Good Selling!!!
