RECESSION IS APPROACHING…..ARE YOU PREPARED?

Tough economies can be ruthless to an unprepared salesperson. He tends to be meek and timid while approaching a prospect and seems to mumble: “I’m just bugging these people. They are busy. I should leave them alone. I’m actually not cut out for sales.”

In good times, things are rosy and people are willing to spend money and are prepared to make purchases. Selling seems to be so easy. Come recession, when the economy gets tight, uncertain and contracted, selling becomes a nightmare for a few as there are more excuses, more competition, and more objections.

Salespeople, who have braced themselves for these tough times by honing up their skills, will look at this as an opportunity. You will be better placed against your competition as you are prepared with better solutions to your customer’s problems that answer their pain and thereby increase hope and demand.

How to operate in a tough economy?

• The time spent on panicking should be replaced by working smarter and utilizing all your sales tools.
• Be proactive and efficient in everything you do- your meetings, prospecting efforts and even networking.
• Be prepared with a Plan B.
• ROI doesn’t stand for running out of income. It stands for return on investment. Create a reason for your customers to buy and then appreciate their decision to invest in you.
• This is the time when a customer wants to feel heard and listened to. They don’t want you to tell them what they need.

Are you stopping your sale?

Your confidence and drive are determined in your voice and posture. If you are feeling negative or unsure, your attitude, tone and gestures are surely going to be transferred to your prospect. 

Here are some reasons why you stop your sale:

1. Lack of selling skills: As discussed in one of my previous blogs, salespeople are being hired and thrown into the market without even basic sales training. Such untrained salespeople prove to be fatal to the organization.

These untrained salespeople require sharpening their skills in any way possible. Knowing about your products, services, and industry is a must. One must take inventory of your weak areas and find mentors to help you grow and develop. You may find mentors in your superiors, friends, colleagues, sales coaches, trainers, workshops or even Google. There is nothing holding you back except yourself.

2. Self-Image: Never-ever approach your prospects timidly and tentatively. You should be an expert in your field, a bearer of good news and a problem solver. This naturally would come by practice.

3. Negative Self-Talk: Negative thinkers say negative things to themselves all day long:

“I do not belong to sales.”

“I sound like a broken record. Nobody wants to hear about this.”

These kind of talks holds you down, and the negativity is automatically and instantly transmitted to your prospects. Substitute these negative thoughts with the positive ones, such as: 

“It’s their job to learn about my solution. The only way to stimulate a bad economy is when somebody buys something.”

“My timing is perfect. He will enjoy my call.”

1. Fear of Rejection: How many times have we heard a salesperson telling his prospect- “You seem to be busy; I’ll come some other time.”

He instead seems to be saying-“I fear rejection, so I should get out.”

If you fear rejection, selling is the wrong profession for you. Do not let the fear of rejection wear down your motivation to sell.

In selling, you create your own economy rather than being a participant in what everyone else has agreed upon as the economy. Take a recession in your stride. It’s actually an opportunity. 

In my last blog, I shared about sales being given a back seat in B-Schools compared to marketing and the rising need for sales education programs in academic institutions.

If you haven’t read that blog yet, I request you to pause and read that one first here, it will make more sense. 

How can Sales Training Programmes help?

As we look across the landscape of sales education now, it seems that universities are beginning to see the opportunity. High-quality sales education serves students well, serves universities well, and serves our economy well. Why, then, do we not see more of it?

Bringing senior sales professionals into the classroom gives students an authentic glimpse of what it is like to work in the field and the different kinds of people who can excel in it.

It is time to change the general attitude of college students toward a career in sales. These attitudinal barriers can be overcome. As it happens, sales positions offer qualities that appeal to Millennial: autonomy, rewards linked to personal effort, and the opportunity to interact with a variety of people. When we communicate the reality of sales, we see those who value such qualities approach it with real enthusiasm.

How will the student benefit from Sales Training Program?

To prepare a new generation of sales professionals, sales education programmes would talk to students and prepare them in fundamental sales (basic, one-to-one methodologies), advanced sales (complex, multi-buyer methodologies), advanced valuations (analytic processes for customer development), sales management (channels and individuals), business communication (personal and group skills), and sales technology (sales-effectiveness tools).

All aspiring B-school students have the drive to learn and be the best. A good sales training will help them and contribute its bit to get them there.

How will the institution benefit by facilitating Sales Training For Students?

Your institution gets a cutting edge over other institutions.

Students develop a broad understanding of all the functional areas of business, not just sales, and often study live cases.

Students are exposed to multiple techniques and skills required for a successful career in sales.

Students are better equipped with selling techniques, attributes, and traits required for better placements. If students are better prepared, companies will have a better supply of talent to choose from.

Students attain degrees in business, marketing, finance, and management, but sales is rarely a major or minor offered. The sales industry as a whole appears elusive to many students until they graduate, entering “the real world” to find that sales is a major industry and profession. A trained student in sales would be a better fit in the sales industry.

I have spent 30 years pursuing sales as my career and in the process, sales has given me a lot. I am privileged to have the opportunity now to contribute my bit in giving something back to sales. As a sales trainer and coach, I help students develop and grow to build a successful sales career. 

For decades, Sales and Academia remained worlds apart and the business world did fine. But Sales is changing, Academia is out of touch, and this is bad for business and the academy. We all know that a well-staffed sales function is vital to business success. Studies reveal that 39% of B2B buyers select a vendor according to the skills of the salesperson rather than price, quality, or service features. So business schools must spend a lot of time teaching sales skills, right?

WRONG!

Take a look at the curricula of the world’s top-ranked business schools, and you might come away with the impression that sales is unimportant. Most BBA/MBA programs offer no sales-related courses at all, and those that do offer only a single course in sales management. Even at the undergraduate level of business instruction, sales courses are sparse. There is an increasing awareness among universities that they should invest in sales education. There is a growing consensus that professional sales have entered a new era, requiring skills that are scarce but teachable—and best taught in a collegiate setting.

Sounds familiar?

If you answered it as a yes in your mind, I humbly encourage you and if I may, even insist you on asking yourself and probably your core team members this question?

Have Sales taken a back seat in B-Schools compared to marketing?

Until quite recently, business education might have been perfectly justified in skipping over sales. Time was, the model salesperson was two parts personality and one part of product knowledge. The job was to carry a bag, get a foot in the door, and talk up your offering’s features and benefits. Perhaps a formal sales education couldn’t add much to that. Product knowledge was unique to a company and therefore handled by internal training. People skills weren’t considered teachable in any conventional sense. Selling was something to be learned by doing. As with riding a bicycle, you could read about it, but real knowledge came from trying, failing, and trying again.

The boom in BBA/MBA programs coincided with the rise of marketing as a discipline. Sales, in contrast, got little respect.  Selling and sales management have come a long way since the days when most business school curricula were designed. There is plenty of substantial material to be taught. And we know that when it is taught in a university setting, it affects performance.

Perhaps the strongest argument for increasing the number of sales education programs is that our economy is suffering in the absence of them. In regions desperate for jobs, good sales positions go unfilled for lack of qualified applicants. Many more jobs are filled by people who are unprepared to excel at them. To acquire new talent, companies will need strong college recruiting programs, but those can take several years to build. And right now only a few thousand graduates each year have been exposed to some sales education.

As sales careers have moved beyond the days of glad-handing and door-opening, a whole realm of knowledge has come to separate the best-performing professionals from their peers.

What is needed?

A great salesperson today can assess multiple customer needs and motivations, analyze and forecast market trends, use sophisticated automation tools, and develop value-driven solutions in partnership with clients. Critical thinking, analytical skills, and the ability to negotiate have become more important than an outgoing personality.

All this suggests the outlines of a robust undergraduate program. As this subject is of great concern, it also needs to talk about how would sales training help and how would it mutually benefit the students as well as the institution. I shall continue the blog next week and cover this in details.