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Impact on SalesI also know that this outdated process actually suppresses the ability of the sales team to optimize their results. For instance, these outdated processes allow/encourage salespeople to engage in far too many non-sales activities.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 The Problem with ProspectingAnother component of the outdated process that still has remnants in today’s activities is prospecting.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.
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