I’m sure you’ve heard the comment, “there’s nothing new under the sun.” And although technology continually changes, making new things possible, some believe that sales best practices are timeless and will be around forever.
I was recently on a conference call with a gentleman who spent 45 years of his career in sales. He began to describe his initial sales training process—one filled with discipline, memorization and one-on-one training. He shared stories about the early days of his sales career, when a great friend and mentor taught him the ABCs of professional sales. Although his friend is no longer with us, he was so influenced by that friend and his training, it was easy to hear the emotion in his voice as he described their time together. He began his story sharing extreme detail; he described his training as if it were yesterday. He actually started reciting some of his old sales lines to me, exactly the way he learned them 45 years ago.
He’s been very successful; he’s a millionaire many times over, and attributes his success to the effort his mentor dedicated to the launch of his career. He could have spent all of his time on our call talking about himself and his achievements, but he spent most of his conversation talking about the planning, research and practice that helped him make his fortune.
Pay it Forward
The one thing that stuck out from his conversation was that he followed his mentor’s example to the “t” and as soon as he reached a comfortable income position, he too, became a mentor. He devoted a serious amount of his time, money and effort to helping others succeed. Today, this is something you’d pay a lot for from many professionals. He describes, “I would engage them for days at a time and helping younger, up-and-coming professionals find the path to success.” He talked about levels of income that some of us only dream of and yet his greatest instruction was to invest deeply in others!
It’s fun to see younger sales leaders and even business owners as they mature. If you watch closely, you can see their lights “come on” as they begin to recognize the necessary behavior and processes that create success.
With ADD and ABCD, 300 emails a day and cell phones, who can really plan or practice anything? You can be reached 24/7, anywhere at any time, so who could say they’ve truly mastered time management? Impossible. With overwhelming competition and having to have a PHD in psychology to understand what your latest prospect just told you, how in the world can one reach success? Times are changing, technology is changing, and so to must your market intelligence and sales processes. Brick and mortar establishments are dying as the Internet reaches deeper and deeper into your client’s wallet. Don’t think it can affect the copier industry? I remember when Office Depot first began selling Xerox copiers; it scared the jellybeans out of us. But today you clearly see that there are some people who simply will not buy technology from box stores like that. They’re different types of buyers and you have to consider this in any plan.
With the rise of companies like Amazon, who would argue that the “I want it now” crowd hasn’t created a demand unlike any other? I think you can see how important a short-term/long-term go-to-market plan has become. Creating a successful sales strategy for the 21st century doesn’t require any new techniques or considerations. It will, however, have to consider an entirely different business velocity, market place and prospect.
Driving the Drive-Through
Here’s an observation that almost anyone would agree with: with the increased demand to have things delivered same day, in two days, etc., one could easily deduct that moving things across the country (the logistics industry) is going to enjoy a massive boom and increase in sales. Wouldn’t it be wise for fast food establishments to include a drive-through window for truckers? Imagine a tall drive-up window that would accommodate any 18-wheeler or midsize truck passing through their territory. A drive-through that would not only sell ready-to-eat hot food, but the top 1,000 items truckers buy—anything and everything that would keep them moving down the road.
Can’t you also see grocery stores becoming more like convenience stores with a drive up? Since most of our groceries will be delivered, these stores would benefit you as you drive home and remember items you forgot in your previous delivery. A grocery-ette, so to speak, where the top 10,000 last-minute items are managed and available in a quick-response drive-up store that keeps you in your vehicle and on your way. And what if, when pulling out of that store, you could pull directly into a car wash that pumps your gas while your car is being washed? This is the type of thinking you’ll need to carry your existing business into the future.
Sales in the 21st century won’t necessarily require new methods and techniques for designing your future as much as it will require that you implement the age-old practices of creating a sound, thoughtful strategy. I would even bet that the discipline, memorization and one-on-one training my friend mentioned would be an excellent contribution for any future business model and success.
If you think about it, pondering the future with a serious regard to what can be/will be is not new. From the foundation of time and across the history of our nation, there have always been those who amazingly lined up their ideas and go-to-market strategies ahead of everyone else. But with the dynamics of our U.S. marketplace, you can’t help but place an immense value on having that solid go-to-market strategy. As fast as things are changing, there can be no more flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, if-it-feels-good-do-it business models.
In the future, I believe marketing will carry a much-stronger role for those who have relied on gut feeling and salesmanship. The gentleman on my call has the opinion that if you know your prospect and do the necessary research to deliver real benefits and value, you will be a success. I suppose to some degree he is right, but the delivery model will be different. How customers will find you and how long they’ll wait for you to perform your sales magic is drastically changing. The attention span and patience of most prospects is short—and getting shorter.
Charting R&D
World-class marketing includes research and development, and although that notion rolls off of everyone’s tongue pretty easily, it wouldn’t take much of a discovery meeting to find out that most folks reading this article have never participated in a real market-research study. First, if you have executed a real research project, you know that they seldom end. To be successful you have to have a continual research team working around the clock. Great research is not free, so if you’ve never paid for such research (and you’d remember that bill), it probably wasn’t professional research.
The research you’ll need for the future has to answer some of the following questions, in no particular order:
- How long will MFP sales carry you into the future?
- How long will the other services that you sell today carry you into the future?
- What services (close to your business model) could you add that would serve your market and your company, helping you transition to the future?
- What market trends do you see (in your area of expertise or not) that are leading the way?
- What sales team model will be required to drive growth in the future?
- What financial requirements does your research for the future demand, and what is your ROI for each?
- What does your individual market scream for?
- Which of the possible deliverables could you sell offer the shortest path to success?
As with the truckers and logistics example above, I can’t help but think that as the speed of technology advances, a successful future will be found in helping businesses organize their many systems that handle their data and business intelligence. If you just think across your own business for a moment, you can immediately feel the value of receiving real-time information for making your critical decisions. A company that specializes in those types of business solutions, I believe, will create a niche with a long, healthy future. Those competencies convert to revenue-generating projects and are not attached to a life cycle of some piece of plastic and metal.
As a matter of fact, the more technology changes the greater your company value would become. As long as new technology arrives, and old technology retires, you would be relevant to most marketplaces with companies wanting to update their processes and capabilities.
It’s time to disconnect from a product-driven sales model and attach to a success-based deliverable!
