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Canada D. The 24 Sales Traps and how to Avoid Them Recognizing the Pitfalls That Mislead Even the BeCanada D. Recognizing the Pitfalls That Mislead Even the Best Performers (2002) 
contents Preface....................................IX Acknowledgments............................XIII INTRODUCTION................................3 PRINCIPLE 1: ADOPT AN OUTSIDE FOCUS..............11 Sales Trap 1: You Must Be Aggressive to Succeed in Sales......................................15 Sales Trap 2: You Can Make a Complex Sale Without an Account Champion...........................20 Sales Trap 3: It's Best to Offer Solutions to Problems You See..............................25 PRINCIPLE 2: GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR BEST PEOPLE................................33 Sales Trap 4: Rejection Is Failure...................36 Sales Trap 5: Academic Studies Aren't Helpful in Real-World Sales...............................43 Sales Trap 6: Either Salespeople Have It or They Don't. . . 51 PRINCIPLE 3: TRAIN EFFECTIVELY...................57 Sales Trap 7: It's the Content of the Skill Training That Matters Most ............................. 60 Sales Trap 8: Beginners Should Start With Comprehensive Training ......................... 66 PRINCIPLE 4: CREATE VALUE......................69 Sales Trap 9: You Won't Make the Sale Unless You Reach the Decision Maker .................... 72 Sales Trap 10: Rank Decision Criteria Relative to Competitors ................................ 76 Sales Trap 11: Providing Information About Products and Services Creates Customer Value...............84 Sales Trap 12: You're Selling Value Versus Price........88 Sales Trap 13: Lower Your Price to Make the Sale......94 Sales Trap 14: It's Possible to Sell Anything to Anybody .................................. 102 Sales Trap 15: Offer Solutions Early................106 Sales Trap 16: Let the Customer Control the Sales Call.................................... 111 Sales Trap 17: The Purpose of Questions Is to Persuade Someone to Do Something...............115 Sales Trap 18: A Skilled Salesperson Doesn't Need to Plan Sales Calls ............................. 120 PRINCIPLE 5: FOCUS ON FEEDBACK AND LEARNING......125 Sales Trap 19: Sales Skill Training Is Enough to Solve Selling Problems ......................... 129 Sales Trap 20: If You Generate Sales Activity, You'll Close More Sales......................... 132 Sales Trap 21: Top Performers Are the Best Teachers. . . . 137 Sales Trap 22: Sales Managers Are Good Coaches.....142 PRINCIPLE 6: USE THE INTERNET...................147 Sales Trap 23: The Internet Has Changed Selling.....151 Sales Trap 24: The Internet Will Replace All Consultative Salespeople ........................ 156 EPILOGUE.................................163 Notes....................................167 Index....................................181 About the Author...........................189 preface A wise person once said that you should begin a project with the end in mind. If that were the case, when you finished reading this book, this is what you would have learned: It is not what sales and marketing people don't know that is most likely to significantly hurt their performance; it is what they think they know that turns out to be either a partial truth, fallacy, or mistaken belief that affects their results more. We call these half-truths and falsehoods sales traps, and each trap springs from validated research. There are 24 traps that could be adversely affecting individual, team, group, and company sales performance. So much for the ending, let's go to the beginning. MY FIRST SALES TRAP It all began at the Xerox International Training Center (now known as Xerox Document University) in Lees-burg, Virginia, where I was serving as a manager of training and development. Ted, a Xerox sales manager and a good friend of mine, stormed up to the table where I was having lunch with a few of our colleagues after a training session. The major account team Ted was in charge of was growing, and he was adding to his sales staff, but his new hires were not closing sales as effectively as he had hoped, and he was unhappy with their lack of productivity. What's more, he couldn't see the benefit of pulling key staff out of the field to take the particular skill-training course we were offering. He expected to see bottom-line results in the field—and in his training expense budget—from our sales training. I knew that he was dissatisfied with his team's performance. He had often complained about our skills-based training, saying, "They either have what it takes or they don't, so why are we wasting our time training them?" This time, he was red-hot angry. And, inadvertently, I had just added fuel to the fire. Recently, we had announced the results of a new sales research project conducted by Xerox.1 The study showed that without reinforcement, our salespeople lost 87 percent of the sales skills they learned within thirty days. "So, now you're finally admitting that sales-skill training courses don't work?" he asked, addressing me but looking around our table with a triumphant smile on his face. "Sales training doesn't work," I responded immediately, "unless sales managers are willing to reinforce it!" I didn't realize it at the time, but I had just identified my first sales trap. What I mean by a sales trap is an incorrect action or strategy undertaken by a salesperson or sales organization because of a mistaken belief, fallacy, or partial truth. The sales trap Ted had put his finger on was "sales training doesn't work." This statement is a partial truth. In other words, taken at face value, it's true that sales training doesn't work because, as the Xerox study showed, attendees forgot 87 percent of the skills they learned within thirty days. In Ted's case, sales training didn't work because he (like many sales managers) didn't reinforce the skills with his reps after the training course was over. But what Ted said didn't go far enough. The sales truth is "sales training doesn't work without reinforcement." Sales traps are extremely important. They hurt an individual's performance and compensation and lower an organization's sales revenues and margins. Salespeople should recognize and avoid these pitfalls and base their sales techniques on updated sales research. SALES RESEARCH Today we're in the fortunate position of being able to identify Sales Traps more accurately because of the revolutionary sales research done in the last twenty years. The scientific validation of sales principles and techniques has introduced standards of measurement, control, and uniformity to the sales cycle and has introduced professionalism to the sales training process that was unheard of before. The 24 Sales Traps and How to Avoid Them relies on this published research—as well as field research conducted by The Dartmouth Group, Ltd., and the Institute for Global Sales Studies—to establish that key ideas and beliefs about sales are based on incorrect information. It also includes real-life examples and practical information from savvy and experienced sales professionals. WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR I've come to see that given the choice between sales traps and sales truths, salespeople choose the sales truths. They choose the more effective way to sell, if for no other reason than that the correct way enables them to work smarter—not harder—with the same or better bottom-line results. Of course, you'll still have to work hard. But you're already doing that, or you wouldn't have picked up this book. This book is for you if you: A Are searching for easier access to the approaches and techniques that improve sales effectiveness A Are curious about the process of selling and want to do it better A Have ever thought that "this is the way we've always done it" wasn't a good enough answer A Have known on a gut level that the techniques you learned didn't seem right, but weren't sure of what to do instead A Have ever wanted to know the valid reasons for sales principles and techniques, beyond the reasons you hear so often This book is designed to be useful to: A Salespeople at all levels of expertise A Sales managers, trainers, and coaches A Consultants A People who want to get others to think differently A Managers, trainers, and coaches A Students considering a career in consultative sales or marketing This book will help you not only to identify what you've been doing wrong, but also to replace your mistakes with the right technique for the right circumstance. Above all, this book will show you how to improve your sales effectiveness. |
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The 24 Sales Traps and how to Avoid Them