May 2002 Track Selling Times World Class Sales Management
 World Class Sales Management:
Teaching Professionalism
by Gail Gibson
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Gail Gibson is an executive consultant with one of the most successful consulting firms in the United States. The firm specializes in assisting owners, presidents, ceo's and their management teams fully leverage their time and talents. Simply stated, MAP helps organizations achieve their goals. They have over 110,000 individual success stories.
To learn more, please call Gail at (818) 380-1177 ext. 235 or visit http://www.mapconsulting.com/ .
To teach professionalism you must train your sales team to build relationships and provide superior service. This value, direction and commitment must come from the top of your organization - the president or CEO. Your company must have a belief system that they are the best at what they do. You have to believe in the company and in the product to be able to teach your salespeople how to get the sale and how to do this professionally.
Max Sacks International provides the basics in sales training to educate salespeople and teach professionalism. MAP provides trainings to the owners, executives and top-level management to improve management and leadership skills. If every company worked with Max Sacks and MAP there would be no stopping them, and there definitely would be no recession.
What is remarkable about the Track Selling SystemTM is you can implement the process immediately. All you have to do is master the basics. Inexperienced salespeople are always looking for something new, the magical gimmick that will bring success. True World Class Sellers learn the basics and practice them daily. Just like Tiger Woods, when you practice your skills, you get better at your job.
The Track Selling System includes the basic recipe for teaching professionalism. You can tailor this and add to it to make it work for your company. Additionally, new salespeople need to learn professionalism through example. World Class Sales Managers should go out with them and show them how to implement the basics. It is important that only managers currently selling and practicing the basics train other salespeople on professionalism. Managers who haven't been out in the field in 20 years and haven't heard rejection are not good role models for their salespeople.
Sales managers must teach their team to understand how clients think. To learn professionalism, salespeople need to listen to their clients and address their needs rather than focusing on what they are going to say next to make the sale. A canned approach should not be used. The approach must be based on the client's needs and the Track Selling System provides a flexible selling process to meet those needs. If your approach sounds stale to you, it will sound stale to the client. Be excited about what you do, and teach your salespeople to be enthusiastic.
One of the best compliments I receive is when clients tell me I must be new because I'm so passionate about my job. They are surprised to hear that I've been a sales professional for 15 years.
Professionalism must be applied in all departments of a company. If the sales department is the only department improving quality, there will be a problem. The sales department cannot operate independently. It is a wrong to assume that only the sales department will grow the company. If the sales department sells 20 widgets a week and production can only handle 10 orders per week, there will be problems. Professionalism will be compromised, and good salespeople will leave the organization, disillusioned in the company and the products.
Sales managers may think it is not their responsibility to worry about the rest of the company. Yet, a sales manager's most important task is to make it viable for the salespeople to do their job by ensuring that their orders are taken care of and that clients are treated well by the entire company.
How does a sales manager accomplish this?
By communicating with other departments before problems occur. Do all the departments in your organization truly understand their part in customer service? If the answer is "no", or you do not know the answer to this question, then you must take action. Arrange a meeting with the other department managers to discuss all issues revolving around customer service. Send employees from these departments to sales meetings with your company's best clients. These employees will develop relationships with your clients, creating a vested interest in the success of the relationship, ultimately improving the professionalism of the entire company.
Finally, reward your salespeople for doing their jobs professionally. Cutting commissions or territories because a professional salesperson is exceeding the output of those less professional will hinder the company's growth. Invest in your sales team, and the company will see the rewards.
Points to Remember:
- Sales professionals practice basic selling skills daily.
- Competent sales managers teach their salespeople to build relationships and provide excellent customer service.
- New salespeople learn by example from managers who are active in the field.
- Salespeople are more successful when their managers help them to do their job by partnering with other department managers to improve customer service throughout the organization.
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