Tips for a Starving Salesperson

Credit: Bill Gillespie

Years ago I was managing a sales staff of nine. One of the reps (a young guy with promise) was doing business with an exciting software company. They spent millions. He was doing their newsletter ($40,000 each month). The "big money" was across the hall.

As you might imagine, I kept pressure on him to meet others and expand his reach. I wanted him to dig deeper into the account, sell more and improve his security. I asked him, "what are you going to do if they kill the newsletter?"

A day later I got a scrap of paper from him. He wrote, "they like the newsletter. It's a valuable marketing tool." I still have that scrap of paper.

I persisted. "What if they cut the quantity or budget? What if they decide to make it a quarterly rather than a monthly?" Undaunted, he stuck to his guns. The newsletter was safe and apparently enough.

Well, guess what. It wasn't as valuable to them as it was to him. A year later they killed the whole thing. He had wasted the chance to meet others and was on the outside looking in. The account and all of their promise was gone. He had no reason or opportunity to be in their building.

The rep isn't the only one who lost. Eighty of our employees lost too. We lost approximately $500,000 in annual revenue and squandered our chance for more.

This is going to make me unpopular, but reps don't own clients. If you manage your business correctly, reps are assigned clients. They are trusted to find, develop and grow business relationships on behalf of the company.

The rep is the CEO of the relationship but their job is to represent the business. It is their responsibility to create a picture, for management, of the prospect, their pockets of spending and the competitive landscape. The rep shares this info and together they agree on a plan.

Reps, if you aren't doing this you're skipping a critical part of your job. Owners, if you aren't demanding this...well...I have a pal that says, "you get what you get when you do what you do." You're not managing your sales asset/investment.

Starving Salesperson #6 is committed to this topic too. I'll share how a sales lady insisted on being in the way of account development and multiple reps. In my opinion it's critical to success with enterprise accounts.

Gotta go. Spencer is inside celebrating his ongoing success with one of dozens of possible contacts. We find it so easy to be impressed with ourselves. How does that happen?