Increase Your Sales Force Staff Without Adding People

Every company needs sales. As Mark Cuban once concisely put it, “No sales, no company.” That’s why you have an expert team of sales professionals, ready to close the big deals. It is important to keep in mind, however that sales does not end with your sales team. Every part of your organization that touches a prospect or client must be selling if you want your business to be as successful as possible.

Everyone Is Selling

From accounting to project management to customer service, anyone who makes contact with a client is responsible for helping with the sales effort. These members of the team may not have sales functions included in their job descriptions, but how long do you think a customer who is treated rudely by a customer service rep or project manager will stay a customer? Not very long.

So should you call in Alec Baldwin to scream at your receptionist and cut them off from coffee until they start closing? Probably not. However, there are certain kinds of sales training and sales tips that non-traditional salespeople will benefit from; in fact, your hotshot sales stars may even be able to learn a thing or two as well.

Sales Training For The Entire Organization

So what kind of sales training might work for both your sales team and others at your company? A key underlying principle when it comes to sales training today is what the Harvard Business Review writes about in a 2012 article called “The End of Solution Sales.” Gone are the days when prospective customers had to rely on salespeople to get knowledge early in the process. According to HBR’s statistics, in an average B2B transaction, the customer will complete almost 60% of the purchasing decision before making contact with a supplier.

The rise of the ultra-informed customer means that sales people and non-sales employees alike need to embrace some sales techniques that are different from the brute-force sales tactics of yesteryear, including:

• Talking less and listening more: Forbes says that salespeople should follow a 70/30 rule when it comes to how much the customer talks versus how much they talk. This is important for the entire organization; listening is critical to get to the bottom of a customer’s or prospect’s needs.

• Change your motive: it is relatively easy for most customers to tell what you want out of your interactions with them. Knowing this, everyone at the company, including salespeople, must approach customer interactions with the intention of doing what is right by the customer, not closing a deal or getting them off the phone. Everyone should be prepared to answer the question “why should I do business with you or spend my valuable time talking with you?” What’s in it for the customer?

• Don’t overload them with features; it is a common mistake of salespeople to ramble on about what their company can do and why their product or solution is the right one. Do not make this mistake. Instead, when you do talk, focus on clarifying the needs of the customer or making suggestions about how they can solve their challenges, even if it is only tangentially related to what your organization offers.

And it is important to remember that when it comes to motivating non-sales employees – for whatever task – money is not the only factor. Consider the example of Google: for the benefit of the company and to improve morale, they allow engineers to devote 20% of their day once a week to side projects. This inspires creativity and innovation and allows involvement in the overall company goal of creating customer value.

With these tips in mind, it will be much easier for everyone at your organization to be part of the bigger picture and build value for clients, which will increase customer satisfaction and make life easier for your sales team. ASLAN is a company that specializes in helping all kinds of people learn how to sell, even if they have no previous experience in selling. Contact us today to see how we can help you instill a sales culture at your organization.

ASLAN for Life. It is truly in our best interest to serve – whether personally or professionally.