First and most importantly, my thoughts and prayers to everyone dealing with the aftermath of Sandy. 

Escaping the wrath of the storm, but being forced off the roads for two days, I spent some time walking the beach and thinking about what I do and decided that I really love Sales & Marketing!  I mean really love it…especially today in what is probably the most exciting and most revolutionary time since the first newspaper ad or the introduction of the first TV commercial.

Growing up in corporate America as a manufacturing and product guy, I’d never really sold anything other than working in my family’s retail jewelry store until, one day, (by mistake and the fact that no one else wanted the job), they made me president of the medical products company where I was the operations guy on the senior team.  It was on that single day of that promotion that I instantly realized how little I knew about selling or marketing anything, and that my skills of process, analytics, technology and time management were now rendered useless because, as I was told by my new managers in the front office...

“Sales and Marketing are different”.

The differences I was told were that Marketing couldn’t possibly be measured, it just needed to be done, and that Sales was all about cultivating relationships.  Since I obviously had zero customer relationships moving up to the corner office from “back in the factory”, I quickly became, and still continue to be a student of what is now the rapidly changing and increasingly integrated worlds of sales and marketing.  

As a result, over the years, I’ve become a pretty good sales and marketing guy (clearly not because of my winning personality), but due to the fact that I study everything I can get my hands and then go into the field to practice new ideas both personally for our firm and with our customers.  For the past five years now, I have followed the principle that all activities in Sales and especially in Marketing are giant experiments.  Something works, dial it up.  Something doesn't work, quikcly dial it down and try another experiment.

And, by the way, all of those foundation skills about process, math, time measurement and technology tools that I honed on the manufacturing floor and in the engineering labs decades ago are now on the leading edge of what has become the science of sales enablement and marketing optimization. 

Relationship selling is stone cold dead.  It’s somewhat of a nice to have.  It would clearly be better if there were a foundation plank in the relationship framework between a buyer and seller, but the reality of sales and marketing today is that neither side of the table has any time to waste.  The name of the game today is that if I’m going to gain customers quickly who will then stick with me for years, I better be selling financial value that drives their business and the business of their customers and not just be handing out Celtics tickets and splitting a bottle of wine at Grille 23.  

Today’s best sales and marketing professionals are...

Turning up the dial...

• They’re reading more. 
• They’re studying, taking courses and going back to school. 
• They're becoming certified internally
• They’re relearning skills-negotiation, closing, and value props
• They’re becoming fluent with iPads, cloud storage, and CRM apps

The very good news is that most salespeople are adjusting to today’s new order of sales and marketing. 

The very bad news is that there are still way too many old school managers who are standing in the way trying to desperately hold on to the only world that they know. 

Just this week, I met a newly hired head of sales for a $20m service provider who steadfastly lectured me that…”in our industry of general construction, buyers would not search the Internet for the type of services that we sell”. 

Huh?  Hello? 

How disconnected can anyone be?  And yet, in the world of sales management, these dinasours still exist. 

I hear this same stupidity all the time along with comments such as “it’s not important for my salespeople to have a process. They’re experts, and they need their flexibility”.  In today’s world, that’s like saying the every member of the Patriots knows what they need to do, so there’s no reason that they need to have detailed game plans or daily practices. 

The real problem with this destructive way of thinking is that it not only holds back the productivity of the company, it is dramatically hurting the competitiveness of our country!  In this environment of continuing high unemployment and weak confidence in our leadership (which hopefully will be settled today), the one dial that we can turn pretty easily is that of increasing the productivity of our salespeople.   At best, our data shows that the average salesperson is only 60% productive, which means that there's a tremendous opportunity sitting right in front of us.

At this time of year, as all of us are crunching down through the last 30ish selling days remaining before the end of December, and as we’re working diligently on our 2013 sales plans and forecasts, it’s time to do some serious personal soul searching as to where you as a manager and as an individual are going to be spending your own time updating your sales and marketing skills?

• What do you plan to do to enable your sales team with new tools during Q1-Q2?
• How do you plan to turn up your own personal skills or marketing dial?
• If you’re a good B+ player, what will it take to become a solid “A” by this time next year?
• What about each person on your sales team?  Do you have a plan?
• Write out this week, the two specific sales or marketing areas where you know you need improvement.  I certainly have mine.
• Then detail a one page improvement plan of what you’re going to do about it in the next six months.

If you want more revenue as a company...
If you want to earn more as a salesperson...
If you want to make our country more competitive...
Then it’s time to turn up the dial!

Good Selling !!!

Jack,
Head Coach

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