Tips On Business Development

As part of our search for additional business development talent this summer, we have paid close attention to the advice that knowledgeable friends have offered on recruiting, compensating, training, and retaining great sales professionals.

In particular, my ears perked up recently as Walt Parmer, a sales management coach, described his experiences with sales and sales teams.

Here are some notes from that meeting, along with my own observations.

HUNTERS/FARMERS/SCOUTS

Sales people fill one of three very different roles:

1. Account managers ("farmers")... build relationships, address problems, service needs.
2. Sales managers ("hunters")... seek new opportunities, close deals.
3. Business development managers (I call them "scouts")... determine best sales approach, identify prospects.

It is rare to find two of these qualities in one person, therefore it is important to really understand the sales process for your situation and identify the best type of talent for the role.

HOW AND WHY

There are thousands of books promoting various sales techniques, ideas and approaches. Some of what I read makes my skin crawl. As a prospect, I expect to be informed, not sold. From Walt's perspective, the sales process is actually quite simple:

1. Establish trust
2. Uncover needs
3. Provide a solution

In that order, by the way. Trying to provide a solution without first establishing trust and uncovering the needs is not only a waste of time, but a good way to damage a relationship before it starts.

In fact, surveys show that customers make their purchase decisions on the following criteria (in rank order):

1. Their trust in the salesperson
2. Their respect for the salesperson
3. Their trust in the company
4. The benefits of the service or product
5. Price

As Walt says, "money is a commodity; service is not." If you truly offer a superior product or service, you have every reason to charge a fair price and make a reasonable profit.

IMPROVING SALES TEAMS

If sales are not what is expected, then tinkering with sales strategy and service offerings has limited returns... Instead, it is better to flawlessly execute an imperfect business idea than to keep tinkering with the ideas.

How do you get to flawless execution? You probably can't, but you can get to the best execution possible, and sometimes that makes all the difference.

For example, if you have a sales force, you can rank the team by performance into A,B,C and D performers. Even looking at the lowest performers, if you can get them to emulate some positive behavior exhibited by the group above them, then you may get their performance to increase one notch. Walt's experience is that you are better to get each sales person to raise their performance one notch than to try to get everyone to be an A performer.

In fact the difference between the top sales performers and the medium sales performers is not hours put in (they put in the same hours), is not age or experience (the average age is about the same), is not gender (men and women do equally well). The common characteristic among top performers is that they play well on a team (no lone wolves), they persist to hit their numbers, and (most important) they do great pre-call preparation and planning.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

With all due affection and respect, Walt maintains that great sales people are like kindergartners: they are creative; they have no fear; and they take action.

Therefore, to manage sales people, it is important to set clear expectations, and repeat often.

The so-called hunters, for example, get their thrill from the hunt, the shoot and the capture. If they are not clear on what to hunt, they may bring back a bear, when what's expected is a deer.

The short checklist:

1. Document clear expectations and repeat often
2. Develop each sales person to reach their personal best
3. Keep open door at all times to support sales effort