Part II – Teaching an Old Sales Person New Tricks

That feeling when you finally get your truck out of the rut and start moving

Keep the momentum going!

Welcome back to the journey to reinvent, reinvigorate and recharge. If you missed the previous article, here’s the link to the complete article Teaching an Old Sales Person New Tricks, and here’s a quick summary:

Review from Part I:

Some signs you might be in a rut:

– You do the same thing every day, week, month or year:

– You don’t try anything new:

– You feel so unique that no one can tell you how to do it better:

– You find yourself saying “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

Some ways to climb out of the rut:

– Quit spinning your wheels and call for a tow

– Google reinventing

– Phone a friend

– Talk with your supervisor/sales manager.

– Take an assessment

– Get a Coach

– Go on two ride alongs:

Ride with another sales person
Invite another sales person to ride with you

– Make sustainable change – Today!

Driving 30,000 miles a year gives a sales person time to think. You tire of talk radio. You run out of books on tape from the library and you just think. This particular day, as I drove to my 15^th horse fair, I had one of those epiphany moments. It was one of those realizations that hit me suddenly but then seemed so obvious. I realized I was burnt out and needed one of the three R’s. Recharge, Reinvigorate or Reinvent. When faced with this situation, you can use one of the three R’s to help get you unstuck.

Recharging means you simply need a break. This is when you have gone too fast and hard for too long. Go dip your toes in the ocean for a week and come back all rejuvenated.

Reinvigorating means you need to make some abrupt changes in how you view your current job. Where do you focus your time and energy? How can you get a new perspective on your current role so you feel energized again?

Reinvention means you feel like you have exhausted your interest and energy in your current role or industry. You now need to make a major shift in your career.

For me, I did a pretty good job of recharging. I worked hard, kept organized and handled a large workload as everyone else on the team did. However, I relaxed with hobbies and took an annual vacation. Recharging wasn’t the solution. It was bigger than that. I opted for reinvigorating myself. Walking into my home office, I realized I needed to reorganize and get new perspectives on my job. I started on the physical set up of my office first. It had been in the same arrangement for a decade. I pulled all the sticky notes and memos down off the walls and filing cabinets. After shuffling the furniture around to be more efficient, I only put back up those items that I really looked at or used. Old files and old product manuals were next. If I had not touched it in the last year, I tossed it. Same went for the rows and rows of files in my filing cabinet.

After getting physically organized to be more efficient and feeling like I was in a new office, I started on the critical component of Reinvigorating: my time. I laid out my customer list and my prospect funnel. Doing my own home-made version of a time study, I realized that I was prioritizing my time based on habit and some faulty reasoning. That reasoning told me that I had to call on certain customers weekly or monthly, which was contributing to my burn out and decrease in productivity. On top of that, I wasn’t really helping those customers by calling on them that often.

More signs you might be in a rut:

You ignore or minimize customer complaints: You say to yourself “Ah, they are always complaining about something. Give them a day and they will forget about the complaint and be on to another issue.”
You look down on customers: I recently sat with an industry leader in his field and listened as he put down and bemoaned his typical customer. It struck me how unappreciative he is of the business he has. I’m sure he didn’t feel this way 20 years ago when he was starting out.
You slow or stop prospecting: Is your prospect funnel messy or nonexistent? If I asked you “Who on this list are you going to sell in the next 30 days?” If you don’t have a confident reply, then you don’t have a funnel.
You only go where it is comfortable: Everyone needs a safe place to go when times get tough. No problem. Pull into the harbor and weather the storm. Just make sure you get back out there. In sales, these safe places are the three or four customers that really like us.
You rely completely on relationship to make your sales: Sales is certainly about building relationships and expanding on them to help the customer. However, if you use that as the sole method of selling and are not staying relevant on the technical side of the business, soon, your customer is going to need technical help. Don’t let a competitor walk in and provide that help.
You think “I know more about what this customer needs than the customer does”. Then you stop asking questions. Your sales approach is to “Show up and Throw up”. When this process doesn’t work, you blame it on price.

Getting Unstuck

Physically reorganize: It’s amazing how some small changes in your nest can help your perspective and motivation. Use the “keep, toss and maybe” technique to start with. This is when you sort everything into those three piles and then handle accordingly.
Get a new perspective on your territory: Sit down and take a big picture view of your territory and the direction it is heading. Do a SWOT analysis. Segment your customers in several different ways: by volume, by total dollars, by net margin and by net margin per unit sold. For more on organizing your sales territory, see Part 1 – Organize Your Way to Success in Your Ag Sales Territory
Do a time study: There are elaborate methods to do this, but for the first time, just keep it simple. If you schedule your time weekly or monthly, then that is the unit you will do the study on. Look at your time in days if you plan monthly or hours if you plan weekly. Look for: Is your time spent according to return on time invested? How much time do you spend with your top, middle and bottom third customers? How much actual time are you physically in front of a customer or prospect? How much time do you spend prospecting?
Learn:
1. Study the principles of change management.
2. Read or listen to “Who Moved my Cheese” or “My Iceberg is Melting” or one of the other parables about not changing. If you don’t like them or think they are silly, no problem – no harm done. You would have just spent that time listening to the radio host talk about politics. Better to learn about Hem & Haw than DJ Hank’s opinion on world politics.
3. Seek out someone who has gone through it in your industry and ask to discuss it with them.
4. Seek out someone on your team who also needs to Reinvigorate but hasn’t. Ask them why they haven’t. Like two people that need a buddy to go to the gym every day, this person will help to hold you accountable if you slip once in a while.

Implementing all of these techniques was like a weight lifting off my shoulders. I had a new perspective on my territory and a “new” office. I was excited to see the results of my new way of spending time. I didn’t have to wait long as results came quickly. With a new emphasis on prospects, I signed several new accounts. This helped build the momentum to keep up the new “me”. While a few customers were not happy that I didn’t show up as often, those customers that I did show up at were intrigued by my new approach of asking more questions and my focus on growing their business. In the end, I did lose some business over the changes in my schedule, but the prospects I gained and the internal motivation & confidence I felt in my career were well worth it.

Make your next meeting memorable by bringing in a speaker who’s been there. Contact me to find out how Greg@GregMartinelli.net

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