It amazes me how much one can learn about the tricks to B2B sales productivity by being prospected by someone else. I recently attended a trade show, had a pleasant chat with a vendor rep in one of the booths, then ‘got scanned’.
A couple of weeks later, our sales desk received a call (in the middle of a sales meeting). One of our colleagues dipped out to take the call. When she lifted the receiver, there was no one at the other end of the line so she hung up. Thirty seconds later, my phone rang and (given the sales meeting had already been disrupted), I took the call. It was an Account Exec from the vendor and (apparently) not anyone I’d spoken to in the booth. While I wasn’t rude (or at least worked at not being so), I did make it clear that this wasn’t the most convenient time to chat. The call ended with no attempt by the Rep to be helpful by scheduling a callback or offering to help in any other way.
A few days later, I got another call. From the same vendor, but a different Account Executive who, also, I’d never met. This time, I explained I knew someone at the firm and would probably follow-up with them. At that point, I was effectively dropped (politely) like a hot potatoe.
In both cases, I walked away feeling like here were two well meaning sales professionals who connected with me (audibly) yet missed an opportunity to really connect with me substantively.
Add it all up, and you have a prospect experience that wasn’t very helpful. Neil Rackham’s take on how to sell in tough economic times is the antithesis of this kind of activity-completing experience. Rackham advocates being exceptionally helpful, often unexpectedly; it will trigger prospects to engage in ‘the conversation’.
Are your prospect experiences activity-completing ones for your sales people, or helpful ones for your sales prospects? If you were the prospect, which type would you rather participate in?
Too many sales people play the numbers game and think short-term. I also hold sales management accountable for this too. The focus is short-term and customer acquisition focused. If sales people and companies focused on engagement, customer retention, and the long term big picture they would need fewer new customers.
Great post John, and I absolutely agree with Shane.
Too often, at all levels of sales, I see people "going through the motions."
The highest performing sales professionals are "thoughtful" in their approach. By this, I don't mean being thoughtful about interupting your time (as they did for you John), though they should be thoughtful in this sense as well.
Being thoughtful means thinking about what you are doing and why your are doing it, and most importantly, how do you create value for the customer in each interchange.
Until sales professionals, through strong leadership and coaching, start being thoughtful about how they engage the customer and facilitate their buying process, sales people will leave a lot of opportunity on the table.
The one small quibble I have with Shane's comment, is that I believe you can have a great customer acquisition strategy–but the key is in how you engage the customer.
Thank you John for a great post and thanks for your great comments Shane!