Salespeople have feelings too…

A couple of weeks ago, we posted a blog called “We need more sales calls, but it’s not happening.”  The basic premise was this, sales people struggle to produce enough calls because they lack skills, have developed poor habits or just don’t think about how they schedule their time.  I went out of my way to say this…

"…before I rattle off the reasons, allow me to say I don’t believe sloth has anything to do with the situation.  Lack of skill, sometimes.  Bad habits, probably.  Deliberate laziness, no way."

I had hoped the article would spark controversy and conversation.  And it did. 

Since I value the opinion of others and would like the whole of the distributor landscape to give the issue some deeper thought, I am publishing a few of the better stated comments here.

First, I love the pithiness of this comment…

“Speaking on behalf of sales people everywhere. I want a supervisor’s advice on sales calls about as much as I want a tax audit.”

Here’s one that I hear often…

“I am always amazed how soon after someone moves up from a straight sales role to anything in management they forget what it is like out there on the streets.  All of a sudden they forget all of the totally unreasonable expectations and burdens that their managers put on them and start dumping them on their people.  The best managers I have worked for recognized this and worked hard to keep the level of BS to a minimum.”

One writer (name withheld to protect the innocent) went on to repudiate a number of my thoughts.  Here they are with very little editing.

Speaking on the topic of scheduling….

“Today for example, I had a full day planned 100 miles from my office. One of the counter people even took my premier parking spot. After an hour in a tire shop parking lot talking to my first sales call and fixing some structural issues with his service, my largest customer emails me on what he needs. This is business we have not previously had and will increase market share with him. Best laid plans down the tube.”

Counting calls to the guard shack as a sales call…

“I have done those guard shack sales calls. This is what I learned. Who has visited in my industry, the person’s name I need to see, the protocol to get into the gate, visiting hours. One of the most important allies a salesperson can have is the gatekeeper, be it a security guard or receptionist. You have to set up the knock out shot with a jab once in a while.”

The value of setting appointments…

“Technical Sales are the best kind of sales. They are asking your advice on what they need. This gives you the ability to customize the BOM to exactly what you have. Technical sales border on design/build and generally have higher margins than standard selling. Sometimes it's just better to freelance than having structured rigidity of scheduling all of your appointments. A little like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when you go impromptu you do not know where you will end up.”

A note from Frank:  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was one of my

favorite movies.  For some sick reason I related more to Mr. Rooney, the Dean of Students, who spent his time trying to track down Ferris Bueller.  I hate salespeople who play hooky from work.  Someday ask me about the guy who lost his pager while making sales calls in a remote territory yet his pager turned up on the 11^th hole of a local golf course.  My suspicions on him were right.

Comments about lazy salespeople…

“I have seen even "Lazy" Salespeople succeed. Much of the time the last person you see is the next person you order from. Some "lazy" salespeople just show up, nothing in hand, no sales pitch, and no plan. They will still succeed at some level.”

I stand by my original statements.  I believe sellers need to put process into their game.  I totally buy into the sentiment, some sales managers try to micromanage.  However, I also believe some very good journeymen sellers (comment not intended to be sexist), struggle with bad habits, sales slumps and variations in sales activity. 

I don’t believe in micromanagement, yet many consider even the smallest addition of process to be “dictatorial”.  There are sloppy managers and managers who aren’t operating at the top of their game.  There are even a few sales managers who could serve as poster boys for Dr. Lawrence Peter’s famous principle.  That’s another topic.  However, my advice to distributor leadership has always been to expect heated pushback from your sales team on any change. 

I believe pushback and resistance from sales teams is a good thing.  Debate is a key ingredient to the development of long term strategy.  Expect it, encourage it.  But once the debate is done, the strategy must be played out with fierce resolve.

Finally, here is a very important point brought by one of the respondents… I could not agree more.

 “….little of what we do today as sales people affects tomorrow. If your sales are sliding or are flat, that started long before it showed up on any numbers sheet.”

#truth 

We need more sales calls, but it’s not happening!

Business levels are flat (at best) and sales managers are clamoring for more sales calls.  All across distributor-land, sales managers are pushing their teams for more productivity.  They reason more sales calls equates to more discovery, more opportunities to quote and greater visibility with customers who for some reason or another share their business with several suppliers.

The pressure is on.  Ranging from kind requests to outright threats, sales managers are pushing for more calls.  In cases where the distributor uses some form of call reporting (CRM or otherwise), the reports are getting greater scrutiny and results aren’t pretty. 

Under pressure to create a better looking report, salespeople are counting drop by visits with no actual customer contact as a “sales call.”  Under the heading of a good example of terrible selling behavior, one reported sales call consisted of driving up to the guard shack of the customer and asking for the head of maintenance.  Since the seller had no appointment and lacked the name of the individual, they were summarily turned away.  Another slightly more credible example of a sales call involved the sales person making a delivery to the customer’s facility where the only contact came with the receiving clerk.  Clearly, this type of behavior does little to impact the bottom line.

Why aren’t we seeing more people?

I believe there are a number of reasons that our salespeople are not seeing more people.  But before I rattle off the reasons, allow me to say I don’t believe sloth has anything to do with the situation.  Lack of skill, sometimes.  Bad habits, probably.  Deliberate laziness, no way. 

Finally, here is my list for why salespeople can’t improve their number of calls:

• They fail to plan their time.  As sad as it seems, on any given Friday afternoon many can’t tell you what they are doing next Wednesday afternoon, unless that day happens to be vacation or the next sales meeting.  Planning is both a skill and a habit, both of which can be improved.
  
• They fail to optimize travel times.  Only a few of the sellers we know have territories compact enough to ignore travel times.  The guys in secondary markets drive 50 miles to make a sales call without considering stops along the way.  Folks in big cities cover less distance, but the effect is the same.  Only a rare few plot their day in a way that offers maximum time with customers.
  
• They fail to make appointments.  Could be a habit, could be a skill or it could be their customers just plain don’t want to see them.  Getting appointments are hard (not impossible) to make these days.  A lot of folks have just plain given up on making them.
  
• They get sucked into mundane tasks.  Some return to the office to follow-up on trivial orders, others drop what they are doing to immediately respond to a quotation and others get hung up on “baby sitting” customer orders.  A few simply don’t trust their support team enough to carry out even small tasks.  A good many are control freaks who feel good about controlling more than they should.  While all of these might be important, they need to maximize team involvement.
  
• They spend too much time to responding to customer emergencies. 
  Technically oriented sellers often fall into a purely
  
  reactive mode of operation.  They get personal satisfaction from solving customer emergencies and customers love them for the work they do.  Sounds great, except that when times are slow, they spend more time instead of less time with each emergency.  Further, some salespeople don’t measure their value.  They spend inordinate amounts of time with low volume, small potential customers.
  
• The situation is complex and requires individual coaching…Reviewing the list, it’s pretty clear there is no one magic bullet fix.  Out of a half dozen sellers there may be four or five different situations.  This is where the sales manager earns their keep as a manager and coach.

Over the years we have devised a plan for assisting sales managers understand and respond to individual weaknesses effectively.   As with any type of long-term improvement, it takes time and a bit of effort.  

Here is the simplified version of the plan:

• For the next 6-8 weeks set aside a time on either Friday afternoon or Monday morning to review each seller’s activities planned for the next week.  Experience shows this takes about 20 minutes per salesperson.  Let them know this is not a permanent procedure but a 6-8 week coaching assignment for the manager.
• Specifically log the data as to where they plan to go, who they want to meet, what they plan to discuss, whether an appointment will be set and the proposed date of the call.
• During the same meeting, review the results/details of the last week of calls.  When possible match the planned week to the actual results (a week later).
• Look for the following:
• Issues with scheduling.  Are they really planning ahead?
• Issues with setting appointments.  Do they need some coaching here?
• Emergencies which took them out of the field.  Are they justified or just control issues?
• The products, services, issues discussed.  Customers don’t want their time wasted.  Are the products properly selected?  Are they bringing the right sales materials?
• Identify individual issues which need skills training, coaching or management.

Coaching works better when individualized…

They say it takes 30 days to break a habit and longer to develop a new skill.  Don’t expect instant perfection.  In fact, you should expect improvement sandwiched between in a bunch of returns to the old habit.  But, don’t let your team wear you down.  Improvement will come.  It takes a while but our work indicates a couple of months spent today can change things for a long time.

Finally, we would love to chat about your unique situation…

Drop us a line or give a call.  We would love to hear about your situation.  We have plenty of resources available and a good many of them are… free.

Are you doing business with OEMs?

Does your OEM customer view spare parts as a revenue stream?   Solution sellers should know the answer to this

You and your customer can share
a love of those spare parts!

very simple question.   Strangely, perhaps even sadly, many distributor sales guys have never fully explored the question.  In their daily struggle to get parts specified, solve technical issues and sometimes baby-sit orders flowing from the customer, they overlook an opportunity to move up the supplier food-chain. 

For review let’s look at the types of folks selling to our customers:

Type of Supplier	Customer Perception
Vendor	A company we send lists of materials to and sometimes make purchases if the price is right and delivery schedules meet our needs.
Supplier	A company we regularly purchase from because they appear to provide a competitive price and good service.
Valued-Supplier	A company we do more business with because their products and services eliminate hassles from our world.  These people provide technical guidance, value-add services and other assistance in a way that complements our in-house team.
Business Partner	A company that helps us make more money.  They perform services which help us make more money and are our competitive advantage in the market.

Perhaps a bit of soul searching may be in order as to where you fall in this category.  I suspect that most self-described “solution sellers” are really performing in the Valued-Supplier space with their best customers and at the supplier or vendor level for the rest.

Think differently, push to the Business Partner level. 

You need to understand how your OEM customer views spare parts.  Are they a profit center, source of service revenue or just a hassle they would like to dispense with?  All three of these have opportunities for you to help them build their business.  Let’s break it down.

OEM sees Parts as a Hassle

What would happen if you knew the machines your product was used on and had their internal part numbers in your ERP system?  When the OEM receives a call for the part, they could simply push the customer over to you and your organization’s inside sales team could quickly identify the right part, convert the conversation to an order and solve the OEM’s customer issue.  End of problem.

What’s in this for the OEM, better satisfied customers and less time spent searching through catalogs to reference the right part?  If you had a copy of the OEM’s drawing, you could provide advice on auxiliary components often overlooked (things like mounting brackets and bushings.)   For the distributor, there is enhanced margin because typically, customers searching for this type of part, are not price shopping.  The customer gets increased uptime and clears the problem sooner.  A win-win-win solution.

OEM sees Parts as a form of Service Revenue

If the OEM sees parts and part replacement as a form of service revenue, you are presented with a slightly different set of opportunities to assist the customer.  First, end customers consider it an irritant if the service person arrives without the necessary parts to make the repair.  How do we address that?  What if the distributor assisted with standardization of parts used in the design?  Would it be simpler to insure the parts were available?  If there are a sub-set of parts used, which are the most common failures?  You might assist in identifying them and perhaps putting together a traveling kit containing most commonly failed parts.  Further, you might provide the service people with “recommended spares” which the OEM could provide to the end customer.  You create the list and package the products as an “add-on” to their service work.  Again, improved profitability for the OEM who marks up your recommended spares list and nice business for you. 

OEM sees Parts as a Revenue Source/Profit Center

This is the greatest opportunity ever.  Typically, OEM operations are not good at maintaining inventories and operating distribution centers.  For distributors, it’s our middle name.  Let’s explore some of the scenarios.

The OEM receives an order and you fulfill it from your warehouse. 
In most instances, this eliminates a middle step, where you ship to the OEM and they ship out to the customer.  Time, money and effort are saved and the customer gets the part a couple of days earlier.  Further, many of the better distributor ERP systems allow for your company to print packing slips which mirror the OEMs own system.  You ship, bill the OEM and everybody makes more money. 

The distributor works with their suppliers to create exclusive part numbers for the OEM.
Each of these new part numbers lock the OEM’s customer into purchasing them from the OEM rather than on the open market.  This enhances the OEM margin and sweetens the pot for the distributor by locking out other distributors jockeying for the business. 

You build exclusive sub-assemblies for the OEM.
Since many distributors are assuming value-add responsibilities for nearly all of their customers, what if you slapped a high quality label on parts to identify the OEM sub-assembly and then offered up your ability to provide these quickly as needed in the field? 

You hold obsolete components to extend the operating life of machines.
In many industries, manufacturers change revision levels or otherwise change the configuration of their products regularly.  This creates issues for their end customers and tracking hassles for the OEM.  Think about ways you might address the issue by holding back inventory or working to find alternative sources.  

What’s in this for You?

First, showing an interest in something besides just selling more sends a message to the customer.  You are really a solution seller.  Secondly, you learn more about the internal workings of the customer.  Going through the exercise will very likely lead to other opportunities.

Finally, the best person to discuss this type of issue with will fall in the management team of the OEM.  This opens the door to better relationships with those responsible for writing the checks to your company.  These management types begin to understand that you provide solutions far above the normal “good service” and “smart people” played up by your competitors.  You win substantial street cred for your efforts and those pay dividends into the future.

Before we go

It’s not uncommon for OEMs to mark-up the spare parts they sell by 250-400 percent.  It would seem reasonable to

assume the OEM should be able to pay more for products sold this way, especially if you helped them develop their own business or streamline the process.  You should negotiate better margins for your efforts.