WANTED Great salespeople and new customers

Why are there salespeople? When you net it out, salespeople exist to create new customers.

Here is the story of two salespeople. Busy Bob (name has been changed for soon to be obvious reasons) and Mary Jo Lyle (actual person). Click for Mary Jo Lyle profile

Busy Bob is a well-liked salesperson. His colleagues and his customers find him personable and reachable. He always is busy taking care of something for somebody. He arrives at work on time and puts in a full day. However, he regularly falls short of achieving his sales targets.

Mary Jo Lyle is also a well-liked and well-known salesperson. I personally have known Mary Jo since the late 1980’s. Mary Jo shows up at work on time and continues until she can’t do anything more for the day. Mary Jo not only regularly exceeds her sales targets, but Mary Jo also often outsells salespeople in like positions by 5X on an annual basis. I am talking about millions of dollars in sales.

Both Busy Bob and Mary Jo know their products, their markets, and their competition. They are also customer focused in everything they do. The difference is in how they operate.

Mary Jo knows that making new sales every day is the key. Her days are full of customer calls and following-up on all active opportunities. She has so many active opportunities at one time, she is stressed in making sure that every detail is covered to ensure that the opportunity becomes a sale. The amount of work related to getting pricing, creating quotes and proposals, identifying the correct products, and coordinating resources for complex installations is mind boggling to say the least. I have not even mentioned keeping CRM’s current, attending meetings and trainings, and “putting out fires” that pop-up almost daily.

Busy Bob has far fewer opportunities. When asked, “why are you lagging behind in achieving your sales target.” He replies that he has so much work to do relative to creating the proposals, getting resources, and following-up with current customer questions that the days just get swallowed-up. He also complains about how much time is wasted in meetings and creating reports for management.

So how does Mary Jo do it? Especially with such a high volume of activities. She is the master of leveraging everyone who has a stake in making the sales. She has the product manufacturers representatives configure the products, the installation department and engineers configure and workout the logistics, the purchasing department gets all the pricing together from everybody, and for pricing strategy she goes to the sales manager to put together the plan. I am happy to say, for many years that was me.

She kept track of every due date and worked backwards to ensure that everybody was doing what they needed to do in order to ensure that the proposals were delivered on time. This included a thorough review of all terms and conditions.

By leveraging the best people around her to get the details taken care of, she was able to continuously stay in front of customers. With the largest number of actual customers in the company, there were endless inbound customer support calls. Mary Jo made sure they were directed to the service department or the manufacturers to get the problems resolved. She did not try to fix every issue herself. She did follow-up to ensure the customers were satisfied with the outcome.

A key factor in why Mary Jo’s earnings are so high, she knows how to upsell. She understands her customers’ needs well and they respect her. She makes recommendations to make their end solution stronger than her competitors. It differentiates her proposals and wins her the business.

The cycles never ended. Busy Bob has worked for many companies for short periods of time. Mary Jo Lyle is a salesperson in demand by many companies and customers alike. In her decades of service to her customers, she has worked for very few companies.

Sales lessons learned

If you want to be a successful, high performing, high earning salesperson,

• Be totally focused on achieving and exceeding your sales targets.
• Every day you should be in front of customers. Plan it out.
• Ask so many questions that you know the reasons for the opportunity as well as your customer.
• Delegate to those around you to get the information you need.
• Leverage all who could put you in the best position to win.
• Know your deadlines and work backwards to ensure you can deliver on time.
• Upsell for the benefit of your customer.
• Follow up with your customers regularly.
• Bring them solutions that you will know will benefit them before they ask for information.
• Ask for the order!
• Ask what is next on your customer’s wish list.
• Ask for a referral.

It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with Mary Jo Lyle for decades. She set a standard for those around her and is admired by all that want to succeed. As a collaborative partner and as her immediate sales manager, she made me a lot of money. Most importantly she absolutely helped the thousands of customers she touched.

If you would like your sales teams to learn how to perform and succeed at the highest levels, please contact me for a no cost consultation. Phil@BeenThereCS.com.