Corporate world believes that sales is the most important factor in sustenance of any business, and rightly so. If you can not sell your product or services, the enterprise will close, sooner or later. To tackle this, there is a sales target, based on which the entire factory works, including production, distribution, and supply. So far, so good.
The mistake that the top management does is to believe that sales is important, not the sales process. People forget that all learning is in process, not in goals. So, let us see the process in details:
1. Customer identification
2. Product or service need of the customer
3. Product’s perceived value by the customer
4. Process of order placement at customer’s end
5. Process of order completion at supplier’s end, and
6. After sales activities
In addition, we need to assume the following issues, which are basically, facts:
1. Customer will not buy the product, if they do not perceive its need, irrespective of smartness or capability of the sales man
2. Customer will compare the cost and value of the product/services with other vendors in the market.
3. Products being equal in cost, value and features, the customer will buy the items from the sales person, with whom she feels a connect.
4. The customer will also look at the reputation of the supplier.
It is obvious that the product or services being offered must be at par with or better than the other similar products available in the market and sales person must be capable of showcasing the positives of the item being offered to the customer. This means that the knowledge, energy, and the attitude of the sales person will play a great role in the sales process.
Knowledge can be imparted by training and other means. But, how do we make sure that the sales person is highly enthusiastic about their performance? As of now, their performance is directly linked to the volume of sales achieved, and focus is on Sales. If the salesperson feels that she is not able to make the sales during the visit, they will be disappointed and it will reflect in their subsequent visits to other customers both on same days and days to come.
However, if the focus of the salesperson is on understanding the 6 points given above, delinking it from sales, and also keeping the other 4 points in mind, the sales person will prepare accordingly, not consider their visit a failure and hence will continue to meet all customers with the same josh and energy. This would need an attitudinal shift in the strategy of the company. The top management needs to shift the performance bonus criteria from sales to covering more customers in both quantity and quality. Even the sales funnel talk about only 5 to 10% visits getting converted into orders. What do you think? Tell me in comments section below.
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