Articles
Sales Rep Expert
The Sales Rep Needs to Be an Expert
By John Mosher, Successful Directions LLC
A few years back I accompanied a good customer, our marketing rep, and the person who managed the production of the work connected with the account, on a golf outing. Somewhere towards the end of the round he mentioned to me that they were both nice people, but would it be possible to deal with just one of them. After this comment I began checking with other accounts and heard similar responses. This prompted some additional reading and research as a result of these endeavors I present my recommendations.
The ideal want of a customer is to make a deal with the expert, not a sales person, not a marketing person, but an expert in the product or service to be offered and purchased. If given their choice, the person doing the buying and also being held accountable for the result of that purchase, wants to deal with an expert. Wouldn't you? The idea is to eliminate the purchaser’s fear and pain.
Is a rep selling against an expert at a disadvantage? It certainly would seem so. It would follow then that an expert is who we need to have selling and maintaining accounts for our companies.
As we look at the structure of most small companies in general, whether they are in our industry or not, is that the owner is the most technically knowledgeable individual in the business and continues to add to that proficiency as the company matures and grows.
Once the company has grown to the point that continued growth will depend upon adding to the sales staff, we need to be concerned about making sure we are adding experts to the staff. The need to have only experts out there is crucial, because we usually get only one shot at a new customer and let’s not forget our present customer base. They too want and deserve an expert to serve their needs. It is important to train these people in our businesses so that they can meet the needs and wants of present and potential clients.
It often makes sense to train a project manager to be a sales person or to take a sales person and make them a technical person. Both of these options can be very challenging, particularly the latter. We may have to start over with a brand new person. I would urge people to not overlook the office staff when searching for a potential expert.
There are two things you must accomplish in the making of an expert and these points tend to be the ones that eliminate most, but not all sales people, you have to be a good detail and follow-up person. The other essential accomplishment here is to correct the devious communication between sales and production, one person has the responsibility to sell and manage the job. The managing of the job needs to be very clearly defined.
To have an outcome that will work for us we nee to commit to the concept that customers really want to deal with one person start to finish. Having made that decision we then need to decide if that person is already on the bus. If we conclude that person is on the bus, we need to determine their aptitude in the areas they are not working in right now. Let’s not guess. There are three areas that we will consider: Sales, Production and Administration. The individual needs to be able to perform at acceptable levels in the one or two areas they are not presently working in. Aptitude testing for these other areas is a really good idea. If they are not on the bus then we have a seat to fill and I would suggest the same aptitude testing for the new hire.
Understanding and committing to the idea that your customers want to work with one person, "the expert" will go along way towards assuring the maintenance of your current customer base and greatly enhance the possibility of adding to it.
