Sales Blog with Sales Tips

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Do you have a large customer base of mid-sized accounts or do you only have a few large customers you rely on? Your answer to that question will determine your success over the long haul.

Staying Power
I don’t think I’ve ever known of a top producer over an extended period who built a successful account base with a few large customers. What I’ve observed is quite the opposite. Sales professionals who are rainmakers do so year after year with a large number of medium-sized customers.

Experienced sales professionals know better than to put all of their eggs into two or three customer baskets.

The Problem With Selling To Really-Big-Companies

1. They beat you up on price. Everyone is after Really-Big-Companies so the downward price pressure is enormous.
2. You’ll waste lots of time on their government-like bureaucracy. And “may the force be with you” if one of your Really-Big-Customers is a government entity.  Double jeopardy.
3. Don’t be in a hurry to get your invoices paid; they aren’t.
4. They have people on the payroll to keep metrics on your performance. If you fall below their thresholds, you’re out. You’re a number. You have to watch your step on every order.
5. Since they eat up so much of your time, you can only maintain a limited number of these Really-Big-Companies as customers. Do the math. If you have three of these and lose one, you’ve just lost 33% of your sales. In short, you’re very vulnerable. A large account base of mid-sized customers allows you to spread the risk. Remember, 100% of sales professionals lose 99% of their customers over time because of normal attrition. I’ve seen too many examples of sales professionals who thought they were exempt from this universal sales law.
6. You’ll most likely be dealing with the purchasing department. Selling to purchasing departments is rarely a good thing from a sales perspective.
7. Whether you call it supplier reduction or vendor consolidation, Really-Big-Companies are constantly trying to reduce their number of vendors. See number four above.
8. You’ll rarely be selling to high-level decision makers, even if you are able to break free of the purchasing department. You’ll be selling chiefly to mid-level managers who are usually just information gatherers and recommenders.

Sales Tips Wrap-Up
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take big orders from Really-Big-Companies. To do otherwise is not too smart. What I am saying is that long-term, high producing sales professionals usually achieve their results with a large number of medium-sized customers. This kind of account makeup normally results in better margins, fewer competitors, time savings, reduced credit problems, less account vulnerability and better access to decision makers.

Further reading:

• Being a Name Brand Salesperson for a Really-Big-Company [What it's like to sell for a Really-Big-Company]

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©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

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Anyone who has been in sales for more than a few months knows the frustrations of being a sales professional. It’s not an easy profession. Your sales manager is pulling you one way, your customers and prospects are pulling you another, and the clock is creating all kinds of problems for you too. If you haven’t lived this, you couldn’t possibly understand.

Right now, the selling profession is tougher than ever. The recession and its relative, “buyophobia,” aren’t helping at all. The media types are working overtime to ensure that everyone stays adequately depressed.

Sure There’s A Recession, But A Sales Career Is Where You Want To Be
I know there are days you’ve thought of parachuting out of your current employer’s airplane. Maybe you’ve even considered leaving sales as a profession altogether. But don’t. Let me give you some reasons to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

1. I have a GPS in my car. When I miss one of its instructions, it doesn’t get upset at all.  It simply figures out where I’m currently located and recalculates a new route to get me to the same destination. We can apply this principle to our sales careers. Yes, things are difficult now, but stop for a second, remind yourself where you are going and make corrections as needed. You can always “recalculate” in order to reach your sales goals. Take a fresh look at how you are selling.  “Do Overs” are totally acceptable in this profession.
2. Time in territory is the strongest single predictor of sales success. Think carefully before throwing away the relationships you’ve earned with your current customers before moving on to another sales organization.
3. Be careful not to blame your current employer for all of your sales frustrations. Virtually all sales professionals are having to work harder and smarter to achieve the same sales goals that came easily only a year or two ago. Don’t fall into the, “There are only two good jobs in the world, my last one and my next one,” mindset.
4. Stay in sales because it’s a great launching pad for your career in general. Sales and finance are where most Presidents and CEO’s come from. I never have understood, however, why bean counters are promoted. I’d rather put someone in charge that’s played the game rather than someone who has merely kept score.
5. Before you bail on a sales career, be sure that you’ll be happy making less money. Even though you might not be hitting your numbers now, you’re still probably making more income than 90% of most professions.
6. This too shall pass. Recessions don’t last forever; they just feel like they do.

Rx
Get yourself a strong cup of coffee and do the following:

• Plan a new sales strategy, if you need to.
• Appreciate the relationships you’ve built with your customers.
• Know that your employer wants you to succeed.
• Remember that sales is where corporations look for their future executives.
• Be grateful for the compensation potential you have as a sales professional.

Further reading:

• The #1 Predictor of Sales Success (and it’s not sales skills)

To receive this sales blog by email click here to receive by RSS click here. ©2009 Scott R. Sheaffer

Even if our employer pays our fuel bills and we’re not concerned about recent gas prices, the CFO has noticed the price increases and is working on ways to control this cost. If we are currently paying our own fuel bills we directly feel the pain. Here’s a sales tip to keep in mind; we’ll see many companies in the upcoming months change how they handle fuel expenses. Many will stop paying fuel costs altogether.

The great news is that by necessity we are being forced to better manage our accounts in ways that will help us in the long haul…in ways that represent solid basic sales skills.

“…by necessity we are being forced to better manage our accounts…”

• We need to determine who our best customers are (and by that I mean most profitable) knowing that fuel costs are justified for this class of customer.

• Identifying outside customers that are marginally profitable is a valuable exercise. We can handle these customers through another channel (e.g., inside sales, website, etc.) or fire them with a dull pencil. Firing a marginally profitable customer with a dull pencil simply means we raise their prices until they either become profitable or they quit buying from us. This was one of the most important sales tips I got when I first started in sales.

• Our sales manager is constantly preaching to us to sell more products and services to existing customers. He or she is giving us good sales advice. Now is an excellent time to get more out of our existing customer contacts instead of adding small customers at additional locations.

• We must take control of our calendars. Instead of jumping all over town, we need to plan our customer appointments so that they tend to cluster in the same area on the same day. Our customers understand that it is costly for us to drive to their location and will provide sales help in our scheduling.

We have to manage around the reality of $4+ gas. The things we do to help us control those costs will actually make us better sales representatives by improving our revenue within accounts and sharpening our territory management skills.

Related links: Fire a Customer for Fun and Profit, Cross Selling

To receive this sales blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

There have been many studies researching the main reason that some sales reps are extremely successful and some are less so. Virtually all of the research comes to the same conclusion and it is surprising in its simplicity.

Sales managers want to know this predictor because it can help them hire the right people and provide focused sales tips in order to teach them how to sell. Sales reps want to know in order to improve their sales skills in an area that will have the biggest impact. This quest for the magic pill is one of the reasons that there’s a new sales blog around every corner.

“This predictor of success is not one that you have any control over…but in a way you do.”

What is it? Time in territory. That’s right, the longer a sales rep is in his or her territory the more likely he or she is to be successful. In the math world they call this a positive correlation. As the length of time increases, so does sales volume.

I think the implications for this are significant:

• If you’re a sales rep and thinking about changing jobs, remember that you’ll have to start the clock over again. Be careful about throwing away the time in territory that you’ve already earned with your current employer.
• Sales managers, do you have a long term sales rep that is not performing like you think they could? Then get out there and encourage and nurture them. You don’t want to lose his or her time in territory.
• Changing jobs frequently can hurt a sales rep’s career and a high sales rep turnover in a company can hurt an employer.

The bottom line sales tip is that hanging in there with our sales job or, if you’re a sales manager, hanging in there with a struggling long term sales rep might be the best thing you can do for your sales volume.

To receive this sales blog by email <click here> to receive by RSS <click here>. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer