QUALITY COUNTS:
A Poor Sales Call May Be Worse than No Sales Call

Every organization is looking for ways to increase results. Many have tried extending new product lines, adding salespeople, changing sales compensation, or even restructuring of the sales organization. These options are usually expensive, difficult to implement, and may not result in a permanent increase.

As the sales cycle of selling larger projects and services increases in complexity and length, it has become important that salespeople and sales managers improve results. For years traditional organizations have tried to increase prospecting and sales activities as a way to increase results. That may not be the answer. In industries with short and simple sales cycles this is effective. However, once a salesperson or sales team is at an adequate level of prospecting activity and account development, the payback from increasing activity tends to decrease dramatically. As a matter of fact, some have tried to increase their sales activities by adding more and more prospects only to find they cannot do what is necessary to move prospects through the sales cycle at the pace the prospect requires, due to the time and effort required.

The second way to increase sales is to improve sales skills and effectiveness. The ability to move a prospect through the sales cycle is directly related to the knowledge and the sales skills of the salesperson. It’s not just doing a lot; it is doing a lot of the right things and doing them very well. The quality level of the sales skills and activities will determine the quantity of sales and new clients obtained.

If you want to increase results, is increasing sales activities or increasing the sales skills the best approach? Let’s examine the return on the investment of your time and effort to increase sales activities and sales skills.

We’ve all seen instances where a salesperson, even a highly skilled one, generates few sales activities such as qualifying prospects or presenting solutions. As a result, his or her sales results are consistently poor. Remember, knowing is not enough, the knowledge and skill must be applied in customer situations with the right people at the right time. You may have also seen a salesperson with poor sales skills and poor call quality who feverishly engages in prospecting activities only to uncover relatively few prospects and close even fewer.

Many technically oriented organizations make a strategic mistake. They confuse technical knowledge of the product or industry with sales skills. Technical knowledge may be needed to support customers and even design systems, but it is sales skills that uncover needs, communicate benefits, relate results, and close accounts.

To determine the payback for improving either quality or quantity look at a typical situation where an individual might generate ten prospects and from this base presents five proposals which result in one closed or new account. If the salesperson simply increases prospecting activity by 20 percent, the activity will generate 20 percent more qualified prospects, which will flow through the sales cycle at the same rate resulting in a 20 percent increase in sales. A 20 percent increase in prospecting activity produces the same gain in results throughout the cycle, all else being the same, such as prospect quality and quality of sales activities.

Focusing on increasing activity has distinct limitations especially in a down economy. There is usually a fixed number of prospects in a specific territory or market and if they are handled poorly, it becomes even more difficult to get their interest and commitment a second time. Even in selling, where everyone is a prospect, there is a limited amount of selling time a salesperson can utilize in a day or month.

Don’t think I am saying to disregard the need for an adequate level of activity because it is essential that each salesperson in the sales organization have an ample supply of qualified prospects. Without them it is impossible to reach even modest sales objectives. An ample supply of prospects will ensure that the salesperson does not put all of his or her “eggs in one basket” and they have the opportunity to sell in a less stressful environment. Experience has shown that if a salesperson perceives he or she has to get a sale, his or her selling effectiveness is significantly reduced by a high stress level.