Every entrepreneur growing a business beyond a very basic level reaches a point at which he or she realizes that the business will not grow further without additional employees carrying some of the weight. Fighting the urge to keep everything important close at hand, the entrepreneur nervously hires the first salesperson.
This is a big step for several reasons. The first is an admission on the part of the owner that he (from now on he = he or she) cannot do everything himself. Another part of the admission is that there are other aspects of the business that are as or more important than sales and he must focus on them.
Secondly, the boss may be the best technician or the most creative person, but not necessarily the best seller.
Third, is the trust that the owner is putting in another to carry the company banner out into the world. If there is a problem with trust, it is actually a two part problem. The obvious first part is whether the owner can trust someone to know his business and its products/services and capabilities/limitations well enough to present them honestly to the public with the right spin on them to make them palatable to the most people.
But the less obvious part lies within the entrepreneur. He must trust that he understands his own business well enough to relate its nuts and bolts and vision and strategy to customers. He must trust that he can communicate it in a way that the salesperson understands it and can then communicate it to others.
A business cannot sell or market well without knowing why it is in business; what need it fills in the marketplace; how it is going to fill it better than others; and where its value proposition lies. If an owner doesn't know these basics, he cannot give the salesperson the tools to be a successful company representative.
Take a client like a local ice cream parlor. They are doing okay with walk-in traffic during the summer, but that will slow down quite a bit as the weather changes. They need to think of other marketing ideas. We talked about the huge corporate complexes within a few miles and we talked about ways to reach out to them. The owner wanted to distribute fliers announcing the location and hours.
I suggested thinking like the managers of the businesses. They don't care about ice cream. But they may care about showing appreciation for their employees. This could mean birthday ice cream or Friday ice cream or ice cream for team building. What the businesses would then be buying would be a fun way to make their employees feel good or bond. The means is ice cream.
Know what is important to the customers you are attempting to reach. If you can figure out what they are buying, you may have an easier time selling what you are selling. And if you get it, you can pass that knowledge on to your salesperson and help them sell it. Once they "get it" they can create different packages of products or services to line up with what the customers want to buy.
So, in simple steps:
Understand your business and your products and services.
Communicate it clearly to your sales team. Make sure they get it.
Continue to strategically advise the sales team.
Let them sell, sell, sell.
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