Okay everyone…repeat after me…”My SFA tool is here for a reason. I should use it correctly and diligently and check it before I call on a prospect or send them an email.”

This is funny AND ironic at the same time. I get an email from a representative of a very well known SFA product sales rep and the email thanks me for my interest and asks me to schedule a time to answer any questions I might have, etc. So what is the problem (you might ask)?

Oh this is going to be good! Here is why this is bad:

1) I’m already a customer.

2) The email thanks me for my recent interest. I was interested in February of 2008…and then I became a customer.

3) Why isn’t the inside sales team of the leading SFA tool using it themselves for prospecting.

My response to this email was that they should use their own tool to research, track and mine their prospects and that if they did, they would know that I am already a customer AND have been for almost a year.

I received an email back from the sales rep stating that he knew I was a customer and referred to that in the voicemail he left me. My first thought was that if he did know I was a customer, why did he send me a prospecting email that had absolutely no reference to my customer status? I was curious to hear the message though so I rushed to review my voicemails and guess what? There was no such reference. His voicemail was just him reading the email to me.

I laughed in utter disbelief that this rep would not only NOT check the database but LIED TO ME!

Oh my…not a very good thing to do if you ever want to close any business.

Here’s the best part of the story. The very next day, I was sent the same prospecting email yet again.

Hmmm…

My message goes out to all sales management. Please hear me. If you want to be successful, you probably already have everything you need; you are just going about it the wrong way. If you want to close business and increase your overall numbers, I’ve got some tips for you.

• Do not depend on the one or two reps that have been there the longest and use the tool correctly to make all of the money for your company. They will eventually get burnt out and move on but before then you will have created a monster or two and you will have several problems on your hands.
• Train all team members when they come on board, test them on their skills and have a sales training class once a month.
• Qualify! See this great blog post by John Edwards of Silver Creek Partners regarding qualifying your prospects.
  
• Do your job. Manage your team. Know what they are doing.
• Have your team attend sales webinars on prospecting from outside vendors. Do not try to teach them ‘your way’. It won’t work. Everyone is different. Let them attend these educational webinars and develop their skills; Phone etiquette, the proper way to leave a message, how to get past the gatekeeper…all worth learning from the pros.
• One hour spent learning new techniques or refreshing their skills will be worth more to you than one hour of them trying to locate the right contact at a prospective company because chances are they won’t find that person anyway.
• Use an appointment booking service, a vendor that makes the prospecting calls for you and books the appointments for your team so that the team is just using their time to pitch. You pay per appointment. This way, if you do need to thin the herd, you can keep your top folks and know that you are saving money and making money at the same time.
• Nurture your own team. Focus on getting all of them producing. You should aim at cultivating a healthy competitive atmosphere that keeps everyone on their toes.
• If you are not hitting your numbers, do not fire everyone and re-hire. What a waste of time and money!

Training and proper management is the answer. The people aren’t the problem, you are. Take responsibility for your team. In that I mean that if you were managing the team, setting goals and expectations, training them on a regular basis on not only on what qualified means to your company but on and helping them succeed (not spending hours everyday just trying to find the right contact), your team would excel and you would be reap the rewards.

Related posts:

1. Blind e-mail prospecting…BIG MISTAKE!