A look at distributor salespeople
By John J Keough -- Industrial Distribution, 6/1/1998
Don Beveridge, a well-known speaker on sales and sales management, had some interesting observations about distributor salespeople and their managers during a recent keynote address at the National Assn. of Hose and Accessories Distributors Convention.Beveridge pointed out that most distributor salespeople do not prospect enough. "In fact, 50 percent of salespeople today don't even pre-plan their sales activities,'' he said, adding that every salesperson before leaving work on Friday night should have a comprehensive plan for calls the following week.
Here are some other items that Beveridge mentioned:
* Eighty percent of salespeople do not bother to read their own sales literature.
* Success breeds failure. "You never leave a salesperson in a territory more than five years,'' he notes. Most salespeople will increase their sales if given a new territory and a new opportunity. Too many salespeople take the "easy way out'' calling on the same customers.
* Top salespeople never talk about product on the first call. The first step in visiting any customer, Beveridge says, is to determine their needs. Ninety percent of distributor salespeople never ask the right questions to find out what those needs are, he says.
Most distributor salespeople, Beveridge believes, are product focused and not customer focused. "There's an unfortunate belief in our industry that product is everything. It is not,'' Beveridge maintains. "Only 40 percent of the time customers' buying decisions are based on the product itself."
Instead, Beveridge suggests that distributor salespeople become proactive rather than reactive. Salespeople should ask themselves how they are perceived by their customers. "The day your identity becomes synonymous with your product, you're on the way out of business," he says.
Beveridge also says that sales managers should not be involved in selling but instead should focus on sales management. "Sales managers who sell are a disaster to any sales organization,'' he says. "Too many sales managers do not spend enough time in the field with their salespeople."
While Beveridge's comments on salespeople certainly raised some eyebrows, he struck a chord regarding prospecting new business. It's a complaint I heard from several managers at another recent conference.
Salespeople are comfortable when they're dealing with people they like and fall into "the comfort zone." But the reality today is that unless a salesperson prospects at least 40 percent of the time, he's not going to grow his territory. Count on it.
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