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As a business owner, you have a defined sales process and have trained your sales people on how they can wield your tried-and-true methods for optimum results. This sales process is spelled out in the employee handbook, you’ve delivered three-day seminars on it and you consider it the foundation of your success. So why then have some of your sales team gone rogue or slowly backed off from implementing your methods? Is it a sign that you need to rework the sales process or perhaps even give it another overhaul?
Not so fast.
Let’s focus on your salespeople… and a little human nature. Believe it or not, success doesn’t always definitively determine future actions; and it is actually very common for even sales stars to either consciously or subconsciously snub their nose at the proven sales process. Self-defeating and devastating to the bottom line? Perhaps. But as much as we all love the sales high, we are also human beings at the mercy of the nasty little deal-killer we call “boredom.” When a presenter of content, in this case your salespeople, have shared their pitch or performed their presentation hundreds or even thousands of times, monotony can rear its ugly head leaving even top performers wanting to shake things up or rebel completely against what works.
Does this mean it is time for that overhaul? Absolutely not. Better to spend your efforts on reminding your sales staff that what might be old-hat to them is still shiny and new to the prospect to whom they are presenting it. It’s about tempering your salespeople’s desire for variety with the knowledge that success is almost always methodical.
So before you go changing your sales process due to performance ennui, have that conversation with your sales team to ensure that everyone is complying with your sales method, communicating the way you expect them to and ultimately closing those deals! Then watch your sales soar.
By Blair Koch, CPVA, CPMA, CPHDA
