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Fear Factor!

Coach Your Salespeople Out of Their Comfort Zone

by Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch

Does it feel like sales were soaring just yesterday, but now it's a struggle to even make the numbers? Are your client lists stagnant, with just enough additions to keep pace with the defections? Are your dedicated customers buying less - and less often - than they used to?

Placing blame for this all-too-common situation is easy. Globalization, corporate consolidation, increasingly powerful gatekeepers, shrinking margins and the Internet are just a few of the challenges of today's business world that have impacted everyone's numbers.

But playing the blame game doesn't address the heart of the issue, which is summed up by the old adage, "If you always do what you've always done, you're always going to get what you've always gotten." Now is the time to take a closer look at how your team is approaching sales. Because change is always frightening, it's up to you to launch your salespeople over their fear of change and out of their comfort zone. If your team remains in a comfort zone, your sales will fade away in the glare of today's unprecedented business realities.

Knowledge is the Antidote

The key to escaping the comfort zone is knowledge - the "antidote to fear," as Ralph Waldo Emerson calls it.

What you know about every individual on your team is critical to coaxing them out of their comfort zone. Congratulate yourself if your team members don't hesitate to talk with you when they're nervous about a potential call or concerned about a client situation. It's the highest compliment they can give you - and the easiest way for you to identify where they may need that extra push.

Pay attention to what customers are saying, what their peers are saying, and what their numbers are saying.

Be observant. Tag along on sales calls and resist the urge to take over. You'll likely discover that some team members need extra training and coaching because they simply don't know what they don't know.

The knowledge to overcome valid fears is rooted in three key components: Research, Communication and Presentation.

Research

Research focuses on gaining knowledge about a prospect's business and direction. Smart research requires transforming your team from typical sales professionals with all of the answers to investigators with all of the questions. By understanding their prospects' objectives, strategies and issues, your salespeople will be better positioned to sell what prospects need most - solutions to their challenges and ideas to improve their businesses.

Researching efficiently and effectively qualifies leads and opportunities. In some cases, your team may discover there isn't a fit and walk away faster - saving time and money in the long run. Other times, they may identify an opportunity that would have been overlooked had they simply focused on pitching a product. The Internet, annual reports, Web sites, speeches, news releases, newspaper articles and business resources such as Internet search engines provide a solid foundation to begin the research process.

Critical to doing your research is conducting a research interview with someone within the prospect's organization. The goal is to ask insightful questions and listen actively to get the information unavailable anywhere else. The better you understand a customer's business, the better positioned you are to sell value.

If, during this meeting, a special rapport is established (and especially if the prospect volunteers key information), this person may very well be a coach. Coaches are key to carrying out the next step in the process.

 What Is Your Sales Team Afraid Of?

They may realize they're not calling on the decision maker, but are frightened of calling on the executive level because they wouldn't know what to say if they did make it there. (That fear may be well-grounded. According to a study by SiriusDecisions and Ball State University's H.H. Gregg Center for Professional Selling, 82 percent of senior executives say they "almost always" or "frequently" experience salespeople who haven't done their homework regarding their needs and aren't informed about their company.)

They may confuse gatekeepers with decision makers. You want them to talk to the people who sign the purchase orders, not submit them. But how can they reach them if they don't know who they are and are afraid to ask?

To get more business, they may have to go around the person who typically buys from them, but they have no idea whom to approach and furthermore, are terrified of upsetting their primary contact.

Communication

Communication is how to leverage research to land a meeting with decision makers - those who only care about what will most benefit the company. These are the people who can say "yes" when everyone else says "no," and conversely, say "no" when everyone else says, "yes."

Your guidance and input are critical at this point as you help your salespeople identify the genuine decision makers and determine which strategies will work best to gain access to them. Always be prepared and available to provide insight and counsel.

Presentation

Presentations conclusively demonstrate to decision makers how a relationship with your company can help them achieve business objectives, address key issues and implement priority strategies. The initial portion of the presentation is where your salespeople should share what they've learned about the customer's business. Make sure they keep it crisp and concise, and use a humble tone.

There are several ways to support your salespeople in the presentation stage, from assisting in developing the presentation, to acting as a sounding board, to attending the actual presentation.

In the eyes of the prospect, this process will transform your sales team from mere vendors to strategic business resources. Most importantly, it will provide your salespeople the knowledge they need to move safely out of the comfort zone and away from fear to a new level of sales success.

Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch are co-presidents of IMPAX Corp., a Connecticut-based sales consulting firm. Their book Beyond Selling Value (Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2002) is the "playbook" for making the IMPAX sales strategy happen.

.The ultimate goal is to use this inside information to access decision makers. Your sales professional can then deliver an intelligent, powerful presentation (based on what she's learned from her coaches) that will conclusively demonstrate how a business relationship with your company can help them achieve their business objectives, address key issues or implement priority strategies.

Knowledge is what's genuinely powerful; the Internet is simply an initial source of it. It can shed light on opportunity, but to ignite sales, you must respect its limitations and move beyond them.

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View all online articles from the
September/October 2006 SalesForceXP magazine.

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