How do you measure sales success?

This is a true story about a lady who was one of the most successful sales people in the team at a software company based in the south of the UK. She was not technical, but her company expected her to demonstrate their software, to hook the customer in as part of her sales pitch. However, she had little clue about the technical details of the product, and said she would probably be terrible at doing a demonstration. So, I asked her, how did you manage to achieve so many sales and be their top sales person if you could not even demonstrate its features? Her answer was simple – she sold based on talking to the customer, understanding their needs. She worked at the decision maker level, the HR Director or the MD – and frankly, they were not interested in the technical details. As far as they were concerned, the product must be OK, otherwise she would have not been invited in. By taking time to find out their issues, and the problems the company wants to solve, she built strong customer relationships and hence was the top sales person.

Her biggest gripe – her company measured how many presentations and demonstrations had been given by the sales team.

After her son was born, she did not go back to the company – and when I asked her why, she mentioned poor management, and internal issues – one of the biggest reasons we see why people move jobs.

We ended up discussing Sandler, and how her approach is in line with the Sandler approach – you could see the relief on her face  when she learnt that she was in the right after all!

The motto of the story – learn all about your products or service, just don’t tell it. The smartest way to interact with a prospect is to be a professional dummy, let the prospect talk, and find out the reasons why they want to buy.