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.

Here is an other article based upon $3.1 billion in purchases confirming that what matters most in the buyer's perspective is not the solution you offer, but the sales rep's competence. This follows similar studies that show the sales rep's competence contributes to 39% of a buyer's decision while total solution is only 22% of the buying decision. Quality is 21% and price comprises 18% of a decision. (study from the HR Chally Group)

"If performance is not improving, reinforcement is not happening."

The more I work with sales reps, the more I realize two things: 1) Sales reps really don't dig into the "Why" of their customer's business. Few ask the questions to their customers "Why are they in business?" Few sales reps try to understand their customer's true vision, the mission and values that drive the company. When a sales rep does learn and understand those key driving forces, it enables him or her to engage the senior executive, especially the business owner, in a conversation on a whole new level.