Hi All,

Corrielle, my PA just received a call from a “Michael from Zoo” trying to sell us some meeting software I think because the sales call was that bad I couldn’t really tell you what he was offering. (BTW I was listening in on the call when after my PA motioned to me that I would love to hear what was going on!)

Let me tell you about how awful this sales person was.

The opening:
“Can I speak with Sean McPheat. A sales director or a gatekeeper will do as well”

What? This was awful!!!

He was arrogant and upon some resistance actually admitted he was arrogant!

“Do you mind if I am arrogant? I would hate to have go to one of your competitors and for them to get the edge over MTD with this product”

What?

How 1970’s was that line!

My PA is an awesome gatekeeper and she told the salesperson that old outdated sales techniques were useless!

“Okay, I’ll try another approach” he ended the call with.

Appalling!

Please, please, please DO NOT USE these selling tactics - they will ruin your business.

Use professional sales tactics, be warm, friendly and have my best interests at heart and you will have a good chance!

Sean Mc

I received a cracking email from a Sales Development Manager recently who needed some advice on how to motivate a sales team who were field based.

Here’s the email:

Hi Sean,

I’ve read your article on motivating a sales team which was excellent and I can apply all of it to my business.

However, do you have any special tips for motivating a sales team who you cannot supervise because they are in the field? The bad apples can infect the good ones, as well as you not being able to keep their chins up for them when the chips are down. You can’t always rely on integrity, and many have different buttons to push.

Your thoughts

Thanks

BM
Sales Development Manager

Here’s my reply:

Hi B,

That is an excellent question, and frankly, I don’t know why I do not get this more often.

Well first, let me add to your question as these things closely relate: I know many organisations have sales people in the field and cannot meet personally with them but maybe once a week, or once a month or even less. So a few questions come up:

1. How do you keep them motivated?
2. How do you keep them focused?
3. How do you correct mistakes that they make in the field if you are not there?

The key is that when you have a long-distance relationship with your sales people, every moment of contact has to be motivational but also educational.

You MUST also HELP them, not just pump them up.

The problem is that to help them you have to correct problems; you must address negative issues. But if you address negative issues when you have sales people that you may not see for a while, those negative feelings can linger. So the question is how can you motivate and address negative issues at the same time and from afar?

First, no mater what it is that your company sells, or how your organisation operates, you need to do three things:

1. Have regular contact with the sales force, if not in person, then either by telephone or virtually—taking in information and relaying only positive responses

2. Uplift and inspire during that regular contact

3. Have regular sales meetings, if not in person, then by teleconference or e-conference and combine the information from #1 and #2.

Let me explain.

No mater what your company circumstances or how spread out your sales force are, the sales manager must have periodic contact with each and every member of the team, either every day, once a week or once a month, based on your sales model.

If your sales model is such that sales people can and should close a sale everyday, then you should be in contact everyday. If your sales cycle is much longer, then perhaps you contact each sales person once a week.

Simply stress that at the end of each work day or at the end of each week, each sales person MUST call you.

If you have sales people who have the opportunity to work very late in the evening in the field, then you as the sales manager should NEVER be done with your work day until ALL of your sales people are finished. As long as they are working—so are you.

Then, during this telephone call, all you want to do is draw out information as to what happened that day or week and inspire the sales person. You just want information on what happened and then uplift the sales person. The main thing you do not want to do is criticise or correct anything. You must present that you are not “looking over their shoulders,” or checking on them. All you want is data on what happened.

Let me give you an example.

Sales manager has five sales people who spread out across a wide geographic area selling point of sale computerised cashier systems to small, independent businesses and restaurants. The sales model is to do five sales presentations everyday and close one sale everyday.

Sales manager has every sales person call in at the end of his or her work day, everyday and they have a weekly sales meeting every Monday morning to start the week, via teleconference.

Now with this set up, here is what you do:

As sales people call in, the sales manager asks tons of questions, and does everything to get the sales person to describe his or her day—but keeping it positive. As the sales person explains a bad day in the field, the sales manager takes note of those negative things that happened and of the mistakes the sales person made, but he does NOT attempt to correct them or even inform the sales person at that time. In fact, if the sales person begins to explain all the details of a big sale gone wrong, where he or she is aware of their mistakes, the sales manager tries to get off the subject.

The sales person may say things that make the manager cringe, but the manager does not say, “Oh, no, you should not have done that!” Instead, the manger says, “Hey, you put in a hard days work and you know the numbers are going to pay you back!!”

Am I saying that this late night phone call should be a rah-rah pep rally? Yes; but much more. It has to be a pep rally but you have to get information about what happened.

One of the most common mistakes sales managers make is to make corrections at the wrong time. A sales person works hard all day and goes home with no sales. The sales person knows that he made some major blunders and lost the sale and is glad the day is finally over. Later the sales manager checks in and the sales person first has to relive this horrible day. The sales person has to recount every detail of this nightmare and voice his mistakes.

Then, when the story is over, the sales manager confirms it by telling the sales person, yeah, you really did mess up! Finally, now feeling tired, broke, and dejected, the spouse comes over and tells the sales person that he is screwing up and needs to get a “real” job.

You want to speak to your sales people at the end of each day or week, and pump them up and give them ammunition to fend for themselves against their spouse, parent, child, uncle and their own conscience AND get valuable information.

Using the example above, let’s say a sales person calls in and as he explains his demonstration of the computer cashier system, the sales manager hears that the sales person does not know how to demonstrate the day’s end reconciliation correctly and that is why he lost that sale and others.

The instinct is to tell the sales person right then, “No! Go back to page six of your sales manual!! You are not doing the reconciliation the right way!” This seems to make sense and it might if you could meet in person with these people everyday. But since you cannot, then you cannot correct this, then.

Instead the manager jots this down, complements the sales person on his perseverance, and lets him know that the he is now one step closer to the sale.

Now, after you get this type of information from all of your sales people and only pumped them up during your call, you use those notes to form your next sales meeting.

In this case, if not doing the reconciliation is something that several of the sales people seem to be having a problem with, or even if it is just one, the manager makes it a topic or the topic of the next sales meeting. The manager does not point out anyone nor does the manager even suggest that someone is not doing this part correctly. The sales manager simply informs the entire sales force that one of the topics they will cover in this week’s meeting is the best procedure to demonstrate the day’s end reconciliation.

Can you see what happens here?

With this strategy, your sales force knows that every time they call you, you only have good and positive words. And at every sales meeting it seems they get sales training that seems to be exactly what they really need! And you did this without one negative word and without singling out any sales person.

I can go on for an hour about all the things you accomplish with this when done correctly. But the main thing is that you create a bond between you and your sales force in that it allows you to “be there” even when you are not. My sales people are field sales people and I make a habit of doing this myself - it works like a dream and the results speak for themselves.

Happy selling!

Sean Mc

I received a great email from a Sales Director the other day.

He was in charge of the sales operation for a B2B engineering firm and he was dipping his toe into employing some telesales staff to set appointments for his field sales teams.

“Sean, how do I set the commission levels for my telesales people? I’d like to offer them a % when a deal is completed and the money is in the bank i.e they do not get paid by appointment but instead they get a % of sales revenue made from the deal if it is made from the field sales rep. Is this the best way to go around this? Look forward to your guidance as always”
Bill Shepherd

Here’s my take on this:

Yes, I have some thoughts in this, although I’m not sure if you will agree!

My take on this comes from me being on all sides of the fence; a professional telemarketing executive setting appointments for an outside sales people; an outside sales person running appointments set by someone else and as a sales manager and owner who had to pay the commissions and costs all the way around. Also, as a telemarketing services company where all we did was set appointments for other companies.

Here is my take on this:

As a professional telephone sales person responsible to set appointments only, I would never, ever have my commission rely on closed sales or receipts. And as an owner-manager, I also found that to be the thing to avoid.

At first glance it looks like the most logical and cost effective thing to do; but it is a mirage. I know it looks like that if you pay the setter out
of closed sales and actually income, that you can’t lose…but it is the reverse. And most people start out their telemarketing programs with this
thinking.

Let me try to give you a couple of the problems with this set up, from an owner/manager view:

First, when the telemarketing sales rep (TSR) knows that their real income depends on the direct sales person (DSR), it causes a ton of problems.

1. First the TSR has no feeling of control over his or her destiny and income. This is one of the core principles we teach in our sales training courses, that you are in control and that you work via science, not luck. But if your income depends largely on someone else, it kills the whole concept.

2. Whenever the DSR misses sales that the TSR thought should have closed, a natural resentment and animosity HAS to develop. There will be times when the person on the phone sounds like a pure lay down, just waiting for the DSR to get there. The TSR is so excited, they mentally spend the
commissions. The DSR does not close the sale. There is a big problem and this will happen everyday. You and I know that what a prospect sounds like
on the telephone really means nothing. With that in mind the reverse situation also causes problems…

3. The TSR does what we teach is one of the biggest mistakes in setting appointments: They will try to make the sale instead of just setting the
appointment. Because their income is based on the sale, then the TSR HAS to think about that sale and will begin to make judgments about what prospects will buy and who will not. This creates two real serious, even detrimental problems:

a. The TSR, without the knowledge or experience of the DSR, lets tons of qualified prospects the slip away, because they don’t think the person will buy. The prospect did not SOUND good enough so the TSR let it go. You will lose tons of money in lost opportunities that you could have closed.

b. Even those they go after strongly, they lose most of because they are trying to make the sale instead of selling the appointment only. The
commission structure forces them to think that way.

4. The TSRs will begin to want to know what DSR will run their appointments. They will want to set appointments for the “best closer” for instance, and not someone else.

5. When the TSR is also paid on receipts, their fate also now lies in the hands of the firm’s billing and invoicing practices, collections, delivery systems and everything else. They MUST feel that although they are the ones who do the most important thing: get the prospect to agree to listen to your
story, they get paid last and least.

There are a host of other serious problems with that system, but once you begin to think on these lines, you’ll see what they are yourself.

So what do you do?

You want the TSR to do one thing only: Sell the appointment and pay them on qualified appointments that consummate–only. Their job is to set a solid appointment with qualified prospects and that is what they get paid to do.

Now, you have to “define” exactly what constitutes a “qualified appointment,” such as the true DM must be present, they must have one hour
for a presentation, the company must have X amount of employees, whatever.

But you do not want any qualifying issues that force the TSR to have to make a judgment call. Once the DSR walks in and shakes hands with the qualified DM–that’s it–the TSR gets paid.

Ok, so how do you do this without losing your shirt or putting up too much money in advance?

Just like we teach in the Science Of Selling, you want to figure out the “value” of a qualified appointment and pay the TSR a commission based on that. If you have not been out in the field closing like this, you will need to make some hypothesis, but I’m sure you can get close.

For example, if you figure that your field sales teams will close 20% (and you can start with low estimates) and that the average new customer will
generate £5,000 on an initial contract, then you know that if you run 10 appointments, you will close 2 and bring in £10,000. So the average
appointment actually brings in £1,000. Hence the “SALE” that the TSR makes brings in £1,000. I now pay a commission on that £1,000 sale, which could be 10% or £100 (or whatever) per every good appointment set/consummated.

You can also figure in any salary, taking into consideration the anticipated closing rate of the TSR. In other words; if you think the TSR will set 10 in a month for a total of £10,000 and you already pay £1500 a month in salary, you can adjust the commission to say £50 per appointment.

For additional incentives and bonuses, you want to direct the TSR toward more effective targeting: i.e: more appointments with targeted companies, or
more set appointments in the same area within the same week, or appointments with companies who have over 20 sales people, etc. etc.

Other bonuses might include paying them a bonus on the amount of qualified DMs they get to do something else beside set an appointment; something that moves the prospect closer or at least keeps them in the fold.

For instance, perhaps they can get the prospect to open an account on the web site or agree to have some of their sales people take a “sample” assessment test online or agree to a newsletter or something else.

I know this may look like it is risky at first glance, but please believe the other way around is far worst.

When you set up a system where the telemarketing executive gets paid only for what he or she is responsible for–setting a good, solid appointment,
then everything we teach comes true. You get a TSR who is proud and confident and professional and who knows how to concentrate on just getting
you and your people in front of the right people the right time. They sell the appointment only and not the service on the phone and hence they set a
hundred times MORE appointments.

I did this so effectively with my company that I was actually able to guarantee to my clients the quality of the appointments we set for them.
When other telemarketing firms where charging by the hour–regardless of the amount of appointments they set or the quality of those appointments–I was charging by the appointment and only those appointments that consummated.

The client paid only for the number of appointments they received and if any of those were not qualified as per our contract or if any no-showed–there
was no charge!!

Anyway, I hope this helps, Bill. I’m excited for you and this initiative–a great step. Also, it is good that the telephone person have some outside
sales experience. If not, I always give the TSRs field sales training and a look into the life of the DSR. One of the problems that comes up is that the TSR really does not understand what the out side sales executives do or how they do it.

I hope this helps!

Sean Mc

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Let me ask you a question: up to this moment, how much time have you spent on perfecting and learning your craft as a professional sales person?

I mean, if you added up all of the time you spent in sales training classes and all of the time you spent reading sales training material and books and every minute you invested in doing your own homework on your industry and competition and on your product, if you added all of those hours up, how much would it come to?

Think about that carefully, and please, don’t lie to yourself.

You can lie to me or your boss or your spouse, but don’t lie to yourself. Add up all of the time you believe you have spent on learning the profession of selling. This does not have to be with only one company, either. Add up all of the sales training and sales related learning you have done in your whole career.

How many hours does your actual training come to?

Forty hours? Fifty? A hundred? Now divide that by the number of years you have been in the business and what do you get? Do you know that I spend on average around 30 – 40 days per year in improving my skills? Yes, you heard it right – I spend 30 – 40 days per year. Here’s how.

On average, I spend 1 hour in my car traveling to work and to appointments each day and on every single occasion without fail my friend I listen to sales improvement CD’s, personal development programmes, leadership, management, marketing, strategic planning, NLP – you name it! And then there are the courses and seminars that I attend too. You see, I take my own self development very seriously. I want to be the best and therefore I train to be the best.

I would even imagine that the average sales person only spends about 10 to 20 hours a year or so on actual training for their profession. And that includes listening to programs like this. Now, remember I said quite boldly that the average entry-level sales person should earn more than the average entry-level lawyer or doctor. So, let’s look at the doctor and the lawyer in retrospect.

How many hours do you think the average medical doctor or lawyer spends learning their craft and training in their profession by the time they reach five years in the business?

Well, first of all, we are looking at about a few years in actual schooling and internship BEFORE they earn the degrees needed to practice their profession. So, if you look at going to University or College for 3 years and attending classes at least 200 days per year, and sitting in class at least four hours a day, not counting homework, then we are talking about roughly 800 to 1,000 hours! per year. And that is before they go to work!! By the time these people reach five years in business, you’re talking about around 4 to 5,000 hours of training and learning. And they continue to learn, with many going on to earn PHDs in their field totaling twelve years or some 10,000 hours of very specific and directed learning and training in their profession.

Now, does it make any sense that you, with a whopping 40 hours of learning, that you should earn what a person with 10,000 hours dedicated to his or her profession earns? Can you see why you don’t earn what other professionals earn? You see, the amount of time that you invest into perfecting your craft has a direct correlation on what you earn.

Happy Selling!

Sean Mc