I keep reading that Sales is something people get into ‘accidentally’.

Apparently people don’t set out to do it but before you know it you find yourself in a role where you get to earn some lovely commission . . . but have to make dreaded calls and meet a ‘too high’ target to get it.

Is that really true for everyone??

My first job after uni was a for a finance company in the underwriting department.  I was green as hell so knew nothing about business at all. Once I’d been there a few months I’d gotten a feel for what bits of a business does what . . . and I knew at that point I wanted to get into Sales.

Being the person who wins the new business to keep a company moving forward was, to me, the most interesting role by far.   And creating something out of nothing sounded amazing!

So I started at the beginning on a telesales desk and have worked in all sorts of ways with all sorts of clients.  It’s been brilliant all the way and there’s still loads more I want to do. I definitely chose to go into Sales.

What about you? I’d love to hear how my sales connections found themselves where they are.

It can’t all be accidental  😉

I’ve been on the end of some pretty spectacularly bad sales experiences recently and the reasons they were bad is because they involved some or other of the below.  How many do you recognise?

1. Making you feel guilty

Depending on the type of product or service you sell, the sales process involves a journey to a client meeting and it can be a long one (it’s not unusual to drive 2-3 hours or more to have a face-to-face meeting).  Never harp on to your client about your journey though; it’s not their fault you’re not based locally to them and you’re just going to make them feel guilty.  Business don’t generally buy based on guilt.

2. Telling you everything they know about their product

Unfortunately you get this in IT and technology and lot; the salesperson wants to show you exactly how much they know about their product and they won’t be happy until they’ve demoed every single thing.  Two hours later everyone in the meeting is yawning (they switched off 1hr 45mins ago) and the salesperson has no more idea of what is important to their audience than when they first walked in – they haven’t asked and they certainly haven’t listened.

3. Telling you nothing at all about their product!

Conversely, you also get the situation where the salesperson doesn’t seem to be able to tell you anything about the product.  No-one expects the salesperson to have an in-depth, technical knowledge of the product and it’s fine to say “I don’t know the answer to that but I will put you in contact with one of our experts who will be able to help”.  However, they should have a basic knowledge of what it will do for you and how it will help.  (N.B. the salesperson who just agrees and says that the product will do absolutely everything the client wants is no good either – that’s usually called mis-selling!).

4. Making assumptions

You can get great, experienced sales people who know their market, know their product, know the likely objections that will come up and know how to respond to them.  The problem here though is that all this knowledge often stops them asking the questions they once would, assuming they know the answer.  And if you don’t ask questions you’ll never really understand what your clients want so stand a much smaller chance of being able to come up with a value proposition which meets their needs.  Always ask questions.

5. Hassling

This doesn’t take much explanation but it still happens all the time, everywhere you go.  Have you ever bought anything because you were hassled into it?  Thought not.  By all means follow up the meeting, send your clients everything you said you were going to and keep you promises.  But don’t cross the line into hassling, they’ll just stop answering their phone.

I keep reading everywhere that ‘this year is the year of the Entrepreneur’ and if it is then that’s fantastic news.  I love working with new businesses as they very rarely have the bad habits and crushing politics that established corporates can have so I’m very happy about it all.  However, if it’s the year of the entrepreneur then it’s surely also the year that everyone talks about Imposter Syndrome as where there’s a budding entrepreneur there’s almost certainly someone suffering from Imposter Syndrome.

Wikipedia describes Imposter Syndrome as “a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be”.

Make sense?  Sound familiar??  I would imagine to a huge amount of people it does so the big question here is: how do you overcome it?  It’s a matter of putting things in perspective.  I don’t think there’s a prescribed answer but there’s a lot of great advice out there when you search for it.  In fact I think the best advice I can give you on this is to definitely do a search on it see what comes up because, not only will you find some excellent articles and recommendations on how to deal with it, you’ll also see that there are literally thousands and thousands of people all feeling the same way, all worried that they’ll get found out too for no reason whatsoever.  If that doesn’t help you get some perspective and see that there’s nothing to fear and you’re fab at what you do I don’t know what will.

I’d welcome advice and links on this subject as it affects so many of us so – all comments greatly appreciated!

This post is about the question I am undoubtedly asked the most by large and small businesses alike: how do I reach the right person?  Everyone wants to be able to get an audience with the elusive ‘decision maker’ and it still remains one of the most difficult challenges facing growing businesses.

The reality is that, within education, the actual name of whichever person you are trying to contact (be that an Assistant Head at the local secondary school or an Assistant Director of Children’s Services at a local authority) is usually quite easy to find.  The real question is not how to ‘reach’ them, but how to engage with them.  These are my top tips for engaging the right person to help drive your business.

Do your research

Due to the nature of the education landscape, contact names within schools, academies and local government can almost always be found either with a bit of online research or by putting in a phone call to the relevant organisation.  A lot of info can be gleaned from DfE lists (although I would double-check the details as this goes out of date quickly) and there are lots of companies who will provide data for you.  Spending time on getting the right contact details will not only increase your success rate, but also present a professional and credible image for your company.

Approach your contacts in the right way

Much as we would like it to, cold-calling and traditional telesales campaigns rarely work when it comes to reaching high-level decision makers in the education market.  Ultimately the people you are trying to contact are unlikely to ever be in a position to answer the phone to an unknown outside organisation.  They are more likely to be busy with teaching and pastoral duties, dealing with parents and working with the SLT.  However, our research shows that these decision makers do make time to go through their email and open their addressed post so it’s likely that first contact made in this way is likely to have a greater impact.

Say something that’s relevant to them

All too often I see letter and email campaigns based around how good a company’s product or service is which implores the decision maker to find out more.  In reality, the way in which your solution works is never going to create engagement with the high level contact you’re trying to reach as, while its important to you, it’s unlikely to be important to them.  Think about what is on their mind, what’s keeping them awake at night.  For example, a school may be having a particular issue with truancy; as a result the Assistant Head may be looking for something which helps ensure that school is safeguarding children.

Ultimately, if your campaign shows that you understand what’s important to them and, better still, articulates how your solution will help with the issue (the ‘value proposition’ which I will cover in another post) then you have a far better chance of engaging with the right person and creating a meaningful relationship.

Good luck and be patient; it is possible to reach the magical ‘decision makers’ but it takes a bit of planning and a lot of effort!

Sarah

Now this is a dangerous phrase because when businesses say this they are often referring the fact that they feel they have a product that does something or has features that perhaps other products don’t have.  And, based on this, they feel no product compares to theirs and, therefore, they have no competition.  But the phrase “we don’t have any competitors” is a dangerous one for three main reasons:

1. That piece of unique functionality that your product has may seem like the most important thing in the world to you but your customers may think differently.

If they don’t see it as a deal breaker then they will look at all the similar products on the market – so you need to be conscious of the fact that you’re also competing with them.

2.  Even if your product or service is completely 100% unique, you are always still competing for budget.

It may be that your customer chooses to spend their budget on something completely different as they consider it more important to them at that moment.  The challenge is finding a way to ensure your potential customers consider what you’re offering as high priority.

3.  The belief that no competitors exist in your market can ultimately lead to complacency.  

If you feel that your product is the best out there then there’s a danger that the needs of the customer will stop being the priority and you’ll fall into the trap of believing that “the product sells itself”.  To successfully sell you must always be asking yourself ‘what’s important to the customer?’ and making sure your value proposition is based on this.

Ultimately knowing your competition is the key to creating a great marketing and sales strategy and, believe me, they definitely exist!