Losing Sales on Misinformation

30% of your salespeople are operating on wrong information and it could be killing sales for no reason!

“We don’t deliver on Wednesday’s”

“Every order has to be run through Mary in accounts receivable”

“We only ship in full truckload quantities”

“We can’t do same day orders”

One of the interesting and fun parts of my role as a sales trainer and coach is to uncover how often salespeople are operating off of bad, wrong, inaccurate, or misinformation in their daily activities. Working with sales teams in workshops or riding with salespeople on farm calls, it happens a lot. The conversation will be going fine. We will begin discussing what’s going well and what’s not going well. In this phase, I’m asking a lot of questions and trying to get at the root cause of any limitations in this salesperson’s performance.

And then it happens, I hear the familiar ring of a definitive like “Can’t, don’t, won’t, always, never, everybody, nobody” and the infamous “They.”

Or I hear a limitation that just doesn’t make sense, like some of the comments above. I start prying a little deeper and I’ll ask why is this limitation or rule in place. About half the time, the salesperson doesn’t know or may remember hearing why it’s in place but can’t explain it. This is when it gets more interesting. Digging further, I’ll ask another person on the sales team if they are aware of this limitation or rule. Again, about half the time, this salesperson had never heard of this rule.

“No, I get products delivered on Wednesday’s all the time,” the next salesperson might tell me in complete contrast to what the first person told me. If the opportunity arises, I might run across the truck fleet manager and I ask the obvious question, “Do they or do they not deliver on Wednesdays?” That’s when I get the back story on the misinformation.

How does this happen?

Often in agribusiness, sales teams work remotely. They office out of their home and may not see another salesperson or manager for months at a time. Sales meetings have been reduced due to expenses and keeping the salespeople in the field. When we do finally get together, administrative type discussions are fast and furious, with little time for discussion or explanation. Worse yet, we use lengthy emails to explain or tell people about important or changing procedures. We reason that it’s important to inform the whole world of this new policy and it’s more efficient to use email. My personal opinion is that many use email to avoid any discussion on the rule or policy. It’s much easier to avoid conflict by just sending it out by email, except that few read it and even fewer understand it.

Here are a few categories of how I have seen misinformation gain a life of its own:

First is the misinterpretation cause: This is when a salesperson simply misunderstands the information. No other explanation. They just got it wrong. Read the email wrong or misunderstood the message.

Next most common reason for our salesperson operating on misinformation is what I call “leftover” from the past. Often, a salesperson is following outdated rules and restrictions that were changed a long time ago. In this example, the company couldn’t deliver on Wednesday for a set time period. Who knows why, but it was just a short time period. The salesperson hears the rule and just continues to operate on it.

Overzealous management combined with a lack of initiative to challenge the status quo is a third reason some of these rules exist. The management in this example might be the operations manager, accounting manager, truck fleet manager, or customer service manager. They all mean well, but, sometimes they use over-regulation as a means to fix a problem.

The accounting manager is getting pressure to reduce accounts receivables – his solution is to require every sale to be approved through his department.

The operations manager is struggling with too many same day orders – her solution is to no longer allow same day orders.

You get the picture. When there is a problem or inefficiency in any business, someone will eventually think of using a rule or regulation to stop the problem. It often happens when discussions land on deaf ears. So, if your operations, accounting, truck fleet or customer service manager are bringing up areas they are struggling with, pay attention and join in the discussion to resolve it. If you don’t join in and become part of the solution, then don’t complain when the new rule comes out.

What to do?

Challenge and kill: as many limiting rules as possible: This is my personal preference. However, if a sales team is going to operate with a rule, it will eventually limit their ability to make a particular sale. On the other hand, salespeople should keep in mind, that rule also might be needed to keep the business operating. That’s the part where you learn how to challenge the rule. We used to call it “Challenging the Norms”. The Norms being another word for status quo. Stephen Covey taught us to “Seek First to Understand, then be understood.” In this case, I like the adapted version of that habit, which is, “Seek first to understand and then kill the obsolete and unnecessary rules!”
Explain it or Change it: As a team (sales, accounting, and operations) you need to either explain it to everyone’s understanding or change it. If the limitation is in place to everyone’s understanding of why it’s there, then great. If not, then it’s your obligation as a team to change it or kill it.
Regularly scour your rules: If teamwork is high, you will have an ongoing process where sales, operations and accounting regularly communicate and work through their operating rules. If teamwork is poor and silos have built up, then a leader can step in to facilitate a meeting to review the rules. If this isn’t happening, take it upon yourself as a salesperson to lead a meeting on it. With Skype, Zoom or GoToMeeting programs, a remote meeting can be very effective at reviewing processes.
Fresh eyes: bring in someone from outside the immediate team to review your operating rules. Someone from a sister business unit is a great place to start. Not only do they know your business better than anyone else, but it might help them run their business as well. If that’s not available, consider hiring someone to meet with, sit with or ride with members of your team to scour how you are operating your business.

I made the statement that 30% of your salespeople are operating on bad or misinformation. This is a rough guess based on what I’ve seen over the years of working with salespeople. Call it 10, 20 or 30% or whatever number you like. My point is that with today’s communication abilities, it should be near zero all the time. If you are a sales manager, take a few minutes and visit with your salespeople one on one specifically about this topic. Ask them about any limiting rules, policies or regulations. If they have any, ask them if they understand them.

Good luck and happy hunting as you kill the unnecessary rules!

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