The Route Salesperson

A route salesperson does something that's very important in the sales process: keeps in contact with customers on a regular basis.  A route salesperson sometimes gets a bad rap.  But he performs an important, essential function for some companies and something that all companies need to put into their repertoires.  The route salespeople that immediately come to mind are SnapOn and Matco tool sales folks.  This group also includes liquor salespeople, potato chip distributors, soft drink distributors, etc.  The lesson we can learn from the route sales folks is that we need to keep in constant and regular contact with the customers who order from us again and again.  Do NOT neglect your good customers, thinking that they'll always be with you.  There's another salesperson lurking in the background who wants your customer's business.  Beware of taking customers for granted.

Relational Selling

Two years ago, I bought a used car. Used car salesfolks have a bad reputation.  They often get a very low rating on the professions scale.  My salesman, Calvin Schoon, calls me, faithfully, three times a year: on my birthday, on Christmas, and in the early spring.  He has no agenda other than to say hello.  But where will I buy my next car?--from Calvin.  Any salesperson, no matter what they're selling, can be a relational salesperson.  Calvin personifies the sales profession: future sales generated from relationships.  I'm not talking about taking the customer out to dinner or inviting his family to your house for a cookout.  I'm talking about caring for the customer and communicating this concern to him.  I'm talking about making the customer think that it's more than the order that is at stake.  That you're in this for the long term and that you'll take care of him long after the order is placed and shipped.

Classification of Sales Approaches

As an observer of sales people, I have come to classify the sales approach into three large categories.
1.  Relational Sales
2.  Transactional Sales
3.  Route Sales

My intention is to give the definitions in this post and go into depth in future posts.
Although I tend to favor relational sales, there is a time and place for each type.
A relational salesperson puts the relationship above capturing the order.  If the product doesn't fit the customer, the relational salesperson will tell the customer that the product won't fit his needs and lose the sale.  Sales managers don't tend to like this type.  My brother was the finest personal example of relational salesperson.  When he died, tragically, in 2004, hundreds of people traveled hundreds of miles to his funeral.  He was all about relationships and his sales were spectacular.
A transactional salesperson is all about getting the order.  This is the aggressive "closer" that books are written about.  For the transactional salesperson, making money and pleasing bosses is primary. The attitude of the transactional salesperson is: "I'll never see this customer again, so I need to make this sale and go on".  A good analogy is the automotive assembly line.  Phrases like "sales is a numbers game" is common among transactional types.
A route salesperson is a person with established customers who buy specific products and they need and want to be seen on a regular basis.  If it's the first Tuesday of the month, the route salesperson is at ABC, Inc.  Every first Tuesday of every month. Examples of route sales types are SnapOn or Matco tools sales people.  Many salespeople fall into the route salesperson trap.
More later.

The Master Salesman II

This is a continuation of my discussion of my father as a Master Salesman.  

I divide salespeople into two types:  transactional and relational.
The transactional salesperson (TS) wants the order at all costs and has probably already spent the commission.  TS is usually under great pressure.  He's got bosses hounding him to make his quota.  He's afraid of losing his job, so he may do a lot of things to get the order--some may even cross the ethical line.

The relational salesman (RS) is in business for the long term.  He knows that the customer drives his business and that patience and persistence may not get the first order, but will often get the next and the next.  Persistence and patience.

I plan to spend some time on transactional vs relational sales.  My point in this post is to show that relational sales makes a Master Salesman.  My father was the ultimate relational salesman.  His whole career as a salesman was building relationships.  Relationships he carried for his whole life.  

I believe in relationship selling because my father, my mentor, was very successful because of this style.   Build relationships and stop focusing on the order and you will have a successful sales career.

The Master Salesman

I had the great fortune of being mentored in sales by a master salesman, who also happened to be my father.

I have asked myself many times what the traits were that made him so successful. For one thing, he loved the sales process. It didn't really matter to him what he was selling--a $2 grease tip for a grease gun or a $150,000 oil water separator for an oil terminal--he sold everything with the same degree of enthusiasm. The commission dollars resulting from the sale didn't motivate him. The sales process motivated him; closing the deal motivated him.

We would attend trade shows and someone outside his territory would come up to him and start asking questions. He didn't slough the guy off to the salesman responsible; he made the sale, enthusiastically.

My first job out of graduate school was teaching in college. After 5 years I looked at my department chairman--the most unenthusiastic person on the face of the earth, and I looked at my father who was the same age and who lived each day full of enthusiasm. I asked myself who do I want to be like when I'm in my 50s and 60s. I left teaching to join my father and have not regretted it and at age 72 I'm still enthusiastic about my job. So I made a good decision.

So, enthusiasm for the sale and the sales process is one key ingredient.

We'll discuss more ingredients I learned from the Master next time.

The Sixth Commandment of Selling

"Don't stop til you get to the top"

Never give up on a sale until the top decision maker in the customer's company says no.  And when the customer gives you a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to getting the order, don't stop until the decision maker in your company says no.

In my experience, sales people give up on the sale too easily.  Don't give up.  Keep going until everyone who matters has said "no".

Fifth Commandment: Thou Shalt Never Give Up

The Fourth Commandment

"Thou shalt never Reply To All. "

Reply to the sender and add additional names of people who MUST see your reply manually.  And while you're adding their names, ask yourself whether they really need to see your response.

When your boss asks your group of 36 people if they'll be attending the meeting, all 36 do not need to know that you've got a dentist appointment.

The Third Commandment of Sales: Promises to Keep

My good friend, Leo Klevens, sent me a suggestion which I feel is worthy of being one of the commandments:

Thou shalt not rest until all of your promises are kept.

How many promises are made by sales people that are not followed up on?  A customer asks you for a sample or for some literature and you forget; or you ask someone else to follow through--and it doesn't get done.

Even if you tell someone else to get something done, it's your promise to follow through on.

Simply handing off the promise does not get you off the hook.  Follow through until the customer is happy.

The Second Commandment of Sales

The First Commandment of Sales is: Thou shalt never use your cell phone in a meeting with a customer or in a meeting with your boss and, for that matter, when your spouse wants to talk.

The Second Commandment of Sales is: Thou shalt never assume that you know your customer's political orientation or tolerance of jokes.  It's become commonplace to forward jokes and political comment to a group of people on your email list.  I have one word to those reading this:
DON'T
Unless you want your customers to start ignoring your emails.  Resist the urge to forward anything not related to the business.
I was meeting with a customer several years ago with one of my employees.  The customer turned to the employee and said: "Stop sending me those ridiculous emails".  I was embarrassed beyond words.
Your customer may not agree with your views and putting them on the spot like this is not a good idea.  This goes with your colleagues as well.  Resist this urge.  What's funny to you may be offensive to others.

Making your emails easy to respond to

One thing that a lot of salespeople do is to write long emails--in paragraphs.  And the customer has to ferret through the email to find out what the customer actually wants. 
Make your emails bullet points, or numbered.  That way the responder can respond to each item easily and can use your email as a todo list.
You need to appreciate the fact that people are getting dozens of emails a day.  If you want yours responded to, make it easy for the recipient to respond.
Short sentences; bullet points; easy to answer.  And to the point!

Meeting Agenda

Never walk into a meeting with a customer without an agenda.  Something I've believed for years: "He who makes the agenda controls the meeting."  That doesn't mean sticking blindly to the agenda.  It means making sure all the points on your agenda, the points that you feel are important, are discussed.  In fact, make the meeting agenda a check list--even better.
And don't trust to your memory.  You get into the intensity of the meeting and forget things.  That's natural.  You need a written agenda to refer to.
Share the agenda with your customer, if appropriate.  That will give the customer an idea of where you're going with the meeting and he can ask questions at the right times in the presentation.
Going into a sales presentation without a plan is just bad sales technique.
Control the meeting, softly, with an agenda.
I remember listening to a sales presentation and I asked a question.  The presenter got mad because I threw him off his pitch.  If he had given me an agenda, I could have know when to ask the question.

The Problem with Email

 We have become a society that wants to resolve everything with an email.  I was working with one of our sales people the other day and he was trying to resolve a problem.  He said the person he needed to get in touch with was not responding to his emails.  "Call him," I said.

I believe that the proper order in working with customers and potential customers is:

1.  Face to face.  Nothing beats face to face.  A lawyer once told me that he didn't like conference calls because you don't get "the smell of the room".  How true that is.  You can't understand a customer's needs unless you spend time at his facility and understand who you're dealing with.  If at all possible, meet your customers face to face.

2. Phone is the second best.  Why?  Because you get the feel of your customer's voice.  Is he upset?  Anxious?  Mad?  I can't tell you the number of times that a customer comes across as upset and angry in emails, but calm when you talk to him.  Can't meet face to face?  Call!

3. Email is the absolute court of last resort.  All of us are guilty of saying things in email that we would never say face to face or on the phone.  If a customer needs a quote at 11pm, yes, use email.  Otherwise, call or, better, visit.

Companies like Amazon and Google think face to face selling is dead.  I don't see it.  There is nothing like looking a person in the eye to see what he's thinking.

New Year's Resolution: 2016

So, let's look ahead to 2016 and make a couple of resolutions that are guaranteed to make a difference--guaranteed to make you a better salesperson:

1.  Learn your product and your competitor's product inside and out.

2.  Resolve to listen to your customers' names and commit them to memory.

3.  Make checklists:  go over emails and phone calls and customer lists and create checklists and go over them constantly.

4.  Be persistent; follow up, follow up, follow up.