Is your selling strategy based upon building solid relationships through the sales rep's likeability factor? If so, you are getting a declining return on the sales rep's ability to get new business or even maintain existing customers. Most sales reps are very high in the red or relationship quadrant. (Whole Brain Thinking) (Herrmann) They have good people skills and can win others over (WOO ability) quickly. The strategy behind WOOing is that they hope to build trust. The assumption is that if someone likes me, they will trust me.

In 21st century, a sales strategy that focuses on selling something versus helping the customer buy is just plain outdated. People are sick and tired of being sold to, but.... everyone still likes to buy. Most marketing departments are still trying to generate leads through promotion of their products and services, i.e. features and benefits, not providing valuable insight into how their offerings are adding value to a business. A promoted benefit is only a benefit if the customer sees it as such. Just because Marketing department says it is a benefit does not make it so.

Below is a link to an article on different tactics to use to revive a "mostly dead" sales opportunity (think Miracle Max - The Princess Bride movie).

I have a client where the employees like to copy everyone on an email. This deals especially with complaints. A person will send their complaint to the manager then copy the manager's boss. Basically, this is a manipulative method of trying to get leverage on the manager because the sender does not trust the manager to do what is needed.

In a recent blog by Rain Selling Risky Business: 4 Areas Buyers Perceive Risk in Sales by Mike Shultz, he reported on a 2005 study conducted by Bain & Company on how sellers and buyers perceive the delivery of value. Eighty percent of the 375 companies interviewed believed that they delivered "superior" value to their customers. While only 8% of the clients of those same companies reported that they received "superior" value.

One of the roles a good sales rep plays is glue or coordinator of resources. A good rep brings together the client/customer and the sales rep's organization's resources. I liken it to a Double Stuff Oreo Cookie. Without the great cream filling in the middle you don't have an Oreo. You have two plain chocolate cookies that are not connected. As one client put it, I must be the "good stuff in the middle" to create great client experiences.

Does your sales process have as its core focus to build trust? Does your sales training have trust as the core factor in winning new business?

I work with a variety of Birmingham, Atlanta, and Chicago organizations in different fields from healthcare to industrial sales. My clients who get the best results see training as a process, not an event plus there is participation in training at the senior level. Most managers arrange training in a transactional format - there is a day and time for the event. Transactional events have little to no follow-up and give very little return to the organization. Think of a workshop or seminar or even web-based learning on a specific topic. The attendees show up, listen and then leave. There is no long term measurement for retention and application. With these type of events, whether online or in the classroom, it is difficult to measure change, for change takes time.

I hear regularly from my clients that they struggle finding good sales people, good customer service people or even good quality people for operations. One of the questions I like to ask or engage in discussion is "Please define or outline your recruiting process?" The second question asked is "When a desired candidate turns you down, did you do a postmortem on your recruiting process for this candidate to see what went wrong?" The most typical answers related to these two questions are: 1) "We have a loosely defined recruiting process that is not written down." and 2) " No, we did not do a postmortem."

We all think we listen well. But, do we? Does your body language say you are listening? Once you leave the conversation, could you write down detailed notes of what was said and the agreed upon next step? Who talked the most? Did the other person feel valued in the conversation? Being successful in sales means that you must build trust. Effective listening is the easiest way to do so.