I've done well as a sales person, but I could have done better. I wasted time by working for some companies where my sales efforts were fruitless even though the products were good. These failures bothered me because I didn't want to repeat the experience. At other companies I made many sales and had fun doing it. In the situations where I failed, I knew the products were not to be blamed, but I felt there was something else wrong — excluding me, of course. Could I find a way to know in advance what my chances were going to be at a new company? I certainly have had enough experience to forecast how sales-fortunate a company will be.
I discovered that other good sales people had experienced the same problem I did — that is, they had failed to sell good products. They wondered, too, how to predict a bad sales environment. I began looking for patterns to sales peoples' successes and failures and saw patterns in a variety of companies. I condensed these patterns into four groups called sales barriers:
- Pain — Product capability and prospect's perception. Customers don't buy specifications, features, or formulas. They buy relief from pain. Does your company's presentation of the pain you can solve meet your customers' needs?
- Promotion — How the prospect learns of the product. How does the company generate qualified sales leads, and what sales support tools do they have to help close the order?
- Price — Price and payment terms. The problem is not the price necessarily, but does the company get the price to the prospect without confusion or hassle? Needs to be quick and clear.
- Policy — The CEO, sales attitude, and general culture. What is the company's attitude towards its salespeople? What is the level of enthusiasm of the people you must count on in the home office? And remember, the company is a direct reflection of the CEO.
Using these tools, jobs I previously would have jumped at I now avoided because they scored poorly on the checklists. The companies that failed were not casual, part-time operations. Most were venture-capital funded with a story good enough to attract some of the smartest people I know as employees. These were substantial enterprises, complete with brochures and receptionists, engineers and salespeople. Their stories were good enough to raise one or two rounds of venture money, but they couldn't get enough sales to stay alive.
The jobs I did take worked well. I even started a company based on the checklists and that did well, too. I made presentations about the barriers to other salespeople and asked them to try the checklists on their next interviews. They said they could now see the barriers or, better yet, the lack of barriers.
Hopefully, you will find a low-barriers company and enjoy depositing terrific commission checks. All companies have barriers ranging from nuisance to nightmare levels. What's important is whether they recognize them and will fix the problems.
About the Author
Gerry Cullen is a veteran salesman and author of The Coldest Call: Why Some Good Products Don't Sell. He has been the VP of Marketing at a Fortune 500 company and was also the founder of two successful start-up companies. He is currently president of ITWatchDogs, Inc., a network monitoring company. His website is www.gerrycullen.com.
