Today a new sales engineer starts his first day in the company. He had two years of experience selling automated packaging machines which made him quite seasoned in this field. He is expected to prove leadership to the present sales team. Since I’m the coach for the managing director of the company, it’s quite natural for him to ask me to make a short presentation about sales and marketing.I wasn’t taken by surprise, after knowing him for two years now; I knew that I have to give one or two pitches to the new guy as well to the other two sales persons who had not really came up with outstanding and consistent sales figures since. Due to the …emm ‘so so’ performance of his sales force since I came in, I had begun reading and subscribing to the channel of Chuck Bauer’s getsalesresulnow on youtube.com to equip myself with marketing and sales knowledge, although sales is not my main bread and butter. Yes, I can say that I am all ready for a short presentation that could motivate these guys to building a solid pool of loyal clients.
Being a science student since the age of 16, I distanced myself from sales since. People who were closed to me told me that sales line could not make good money. I was convinced when I saw the shops in the town that I lived showed little signs of improved living standards. It was a common scene to see the owners sat behind their counters waiting for customer to drop in, really nothing interesting happened. The managing director who is few years younger than me also grew up learning science as his main stream. Thus, making us both paddling the same boat.
Before working on my own as a freelance process improvement consultant, I had been working in manufacturing department all the while. The people in the production or manufacturing were regarded as the pillars of the company, and many freshies (newbies) opted to work in the manufacturing department for better salary and future advancement. The corporation that I was with never had a president with sales or business background since it was incorporated. As such, I felt secured. Another fact that I wasn’t really involved in sales was because sales and marketing figures were all decided by the HQ (headquarters or head office) in Tokyo. We just produced in accordance to the figures given by the market representative from HQ. Furthermore, the local consumption was less that 5% of the total sales of the company so there not much of sales activities going on in the factory.
As competition got tougher and the emergence of stiff competitors from Taiwan and South Korea, the company that decided to mold all senior managers from developing countries into a all-rounded general managers knowledgeable in technology and in business. The corporation had also promoted a vice-president with business and sales background as its president for the first time in history of the corporation. It was a great surprise to every employee either in Japan or their overseas ventures. So, as to gear up the performance to the company for the new millennium all general managers from overseas ventures were brought to the executive training center in Japan to attend seminar organized by the HQ for a month; it was like a crash in-house course in MBA studies.In one of the classes, I remembered very clearly a senior director of the sales and marketing division of the corporation emphasized that sales and marketing in like front wheel of a front wheel-driven cars, contradictory to the previous understanding that manufacturing was the power behind the wheels of the back wheel-driven cars. The analogy given was totally the opposite of my understanding that manufacturing push for sales was the norm of businesses to staying in business. The era of production push is fast losing its grip on how businesses are to be carried out nowadays. The only thing I had in my head was that I hope it’s was not too late for me to take sales and marketing seriously as the learning synapses of my brain were getting weaker.
I have to do what most good consultants would have done, that is, regardless of my weaken brain synapses I got to restructure my understanding on what business is all about today by getting totally involved in the business of creating customers rather than business of creating large inventory on products. As for my weak brain synapses, I guess by taking correct dosage of Eicosapentaenoic acid or EPA capsules daily I can revive the strength of my brain synapses….emm hope so…
You see, a sales person can be regarded as a preacher of a particular church who preaches to invite people to believe in his church. The general public are his prospects, and his job is to convert as many followers as possible attracting them with promises of good blessings and resurrection. Converts will be loyal if and only if they are held satisfied with the promises that were given to them through words and assurance of the preacher.
It’s a simple analogy of a salesperson and it gives me a vivid understand of what the sales department must do, that is to get as many prospects be converted into customers. Having able to convert them into customers is not the end yet; there is another area path that we have to take them in order to be loyal to us. This is the difficult part; turning the customers into clients who would come repeatedly for the products or services and consultations. At this juncture, your prospects were already converted to full pledge clients because they are held satisfied with the products or services that your had promised them earlier. How can sales persons do this?
Sales persons, being like a the front wheels of the front wheel-driven vehicles, have to get across what ever they had promised to the customers to the other functional groups of the organization, namely, designing, purchasing, manufacturing and assembly. The sales persons are also responsible to translate the requirements of the customers in meticulous details and they should be crystal-clear of what required by the customers. They must not leave it entire to the hand of these groups and must continuously coordinate the manufacturing processes of the products. At this stage no assumptions must be made by the sales persons because their customers are held satisfied with their promises. Many a time sale persons commit ‘unforced’ errors here which can cause serious damage to the company’s reputation. It is all because they make assumptions.
Let me repeat again the simple 3-step sales process that the sales person must adhere to in order to secure loyal clients.
1. Create customers by converting prospects into customers
2. Attract customers with promises that held them satisfied
3. Deliver promises by coordinating the efforts to produce the products or services, so as to convert customers into clients.
