Business Leads UK

Innovation Showcase

Because I spend a significant chunk of my time wandering around all the various networks that touch on sales and selling issues, I see a lot of anguished debate about selling and sales management, much of it essentially revolving around core questions like “How can I sell better/more” or “How can I recruit/train/motivate my sales staff so that they will sell better/more”.

Lots of questions are then sub-sets of those basic problems and questions, like “Why won’t sales people use CRM systems?” or “What percentage of salary should be commission based?” or “What is the best sales process for getting from unknown, to lead, to prospect, to customer?”

All the time, I guess my subconscious was churning these various questions, answers and sales tips around – looking for the numero uno “best” answer. And this included reflecting on my own career in sales, across a wide range of multi-media products and services.

So there I was then, having a leak, as you do, and the answer popped into my head. Want to know what it was?....

“Sell the stuff that people want to buy!”

“Simples” right? Well, it’s a simple sentence alright, and it’s supported by a mass of incontrovertible proof. For example from my own life, listening to advertising clients of Certified Accountant magazine (quite a tough sell, even though we did make a series of pretty steep targets, initially quadrupling revenues), meant that we launched both PASS magazine to hit the part-qualified accountants and The Accountants’ Exhibition, between them achieving something like 8 times the revenues of even that quadrupled sum. So, comparatively, they were an absolute breeze to sell, and certainly financially rewarding – personally and corporately.

Or look to the wider world, and what or who do you see selling spectacularly well these days? Google, Microsoft? Yes sure them and lots of other IT firms following or fuelling the massive surge in online and computer-based activity. But check out the top 10 FTSE performers since 1996 too, and you’ll see some eye-watering results in property (Savills) and construction (McCarthy & Stone – retirement flats) or Workspace Group (flexible office accommodation) plus oil & gas, all feeding the very basic and overwhelming demand from us all, for more and better places to live and work, with the energy supplies to go with it. And let’s draw a veil over tobacco and hedge funds – possibly a bit controversial! But are these companies doing so spectacularly well because they employ only the best, and a different breed of, sales people? No – or I doubt it anyway. They’re having a great time selling, because they’re selling what the maximum number of people actually wants to buy.

The “simples” aspect starts to evaporate, however, if you face the fact that we can’t all work in the rising industries, nor do we all have the freedom to adapt and innovate around our core products and services quite as easily as with my personal examples (although maybe we should be pushing harder in this area – and actually it wasn’t all that “easy” folks!). However I have found, when starting to question the “Tip” from these different angles, that it does, nonetheless, have a similar robustness of truth and validity in it. If, for example, you apply it to the issue of lead generation or cold calling, you can use it to guide your thinking and activities to seeking out the people who really do want to buy whatever it is you’re selling.

So then, let the example be fitted kitchens and ask yourself “Is my next ‘unknown’ contact likely to want to buy a fitted kitchen?” And, if the answer is “Well, 99 times out of 100, probably not”, then ask yourself what you or your company could do that would make that 9 times out of 10, or 4 times out of 5, or better? (And this might also give you a clue as to why 99 prospect contacts out of 100 do not make it on to the CRM system).

Or maybe have a little listen to the 99, and see how many of them might want anything to do with home improvements, like feedback to you saying “Well yes, we are hoping to sell this house, and a new fitted kitchen would certainly help it to sell, but we haven’t got the finances to achieve that, and anyway we can’t work out the sums to show that £10K spent putting one in would get us £15K back in an improved sale price – can you help with that?” Perhaps, that way, you’d find that offering a “home improvement package” that included not just the fitted kitchen, but also the (good value!) financial support to get the job done, you would indeed have improved the likelihood of offering what people (on that cold-call list) wanted, from 1 in 100 to 5 in 100. And, if you layer on top of that the possibility of targeting relevant looking property that was sitting around unsold, and focussed your calls on those – we might even be getting to 10 in 100. Mind you, if it were at all possible to tie up some kind of referral package with Savills (doing very well, but we all want to do even better), such that they recommended that “sticky” property owners applied to you, for that “self-financing kitchen refurbishment package” well, who’s to say you wouldn’t be talking to 50 out of 100, very successfully indeed!?

It does mean that your opening “sales pitch” will not be anything remotely along the lines of having fitters in the area or special offers for show homes, yada, yada, yada. Because to find out what they want to buy, you’ll have to ask something like “Is there any reason or way that you would want to improve the current kitchen in your property?” – without assuming that they see it as a “home” that they want to improve for their own consumption. And if you get some “smartass” answer like “Sure, if it was free!” you’ve at least got the knowledge that they do want to improve it, and now the possibility that, if they are selling in the foreseeable future, then it might not only be free, but profitable – for them! (Be sure to have your proof available though, won’t you?)

All good, as far as I can see – but I’d be interested if any of you have further examples or scenarios that would support this fabulous new sales tip – (or shoot it down in flames, of course, because I’m listening!)