Welcome to the new SalesWays web site!

Who are we? SalesWays represents new, breakthrough ideas on how sales people approach selling. Our patented sales methodology, SalesWays OPM, can be found at the core of our books, software, and sales training; helping salespeople treat their opportunities like an investment portfolio, ultimately spending less time on winning more business.

Our previous site focused on our first book, Sales Automation Done Right (SADR), which introduced an innovative selling methodology born from the idea of how the computer can radically improve sales effectiveness. The sales methodology has advanced much further, and now stands alone outside the sphere of technology. It has been the subject of a sales training course for over 3 years, refined over a decade across thousands of sales people.

Today, we have a widely available book, software programs, and training courses. We have a lot of exciting developments in the works:

• a second book, OPM, that will focus primarily on the sales method
• more software platforms
• additional training options

We look forward to connecting with sales professionals, trainers, and anyone generally interested in the process of selling!

A while ago, I tuned into a conversation between two of our salespeople. One of them, a relative newcomer to sales, was commenting that given the experience of his first year in sales, selling was easy.

I’ve been selling for a long time, and I have never thought selling was easy.

In earlier entries, I had talked about sales as a profession. As in any profession, it’s difficult to make a call on how easy it is until you have a lot of experience under your belt. Early success in sales can be the result of factors outside of your native selling skills.

I remember my first order was for about $10,000. I was elated. The problem was that most people in the sales department are nice, and they pat you on the back for your first sale. But it wasn’t a sale; it was an order. I just took the customer’s call and wrote down the information. The guy whose territory I had just taken over did the spadework.

The more experienced you become at selling, the higher you rise, and the more challenging it becomes. You are now up against competitors whose maturity evolved from the same torturous path that you followed to become successful. If selling is easy, you have no competition and sometimes that is the case. Or, someone else is doing the work for you. But if your product is much the same as your competitors, and the salesperson you are working against has the same experience as you, selling will not be easy.

Strategic customer relationship management has been my focus for the last twelve years. During this time I have worked with sales executives, managers and directors at major software vendors and consulting firms. I have always faced one major challenge: how to sell software or services to people who just don’t believe it can help them. “This is going to waste my time,” they say.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why CRM still does not have the same impact on sales as it does for marketing and service organizations.

Recently, I have completed some research which asked sales executives the major benefits that CRM brought to sales organizations. Most of them said that even considering indirect benefits related to their activities such as communications or reduction in administrative overhead, CRM did not help on its main promise: to increase sales productivity and revenues.

In fact, sales automation, when associated to mobile order entry is quite well recognized as an important tool. However, when associated with increased sales effectiveness with any kind of structured methodology, sales reps just turn their faces: “I’m afraid that it will take me too much time,” they say, “I do not see it as something that could make me work better.”

Working in the consulting business for the last 5 years, I could not find anything really new in this business. That is until a sales rep at one of my clients said to me: “Hey Enio, I´m in control of all my opportunities,” and showed me a PDA running a piece of software with an interesting dashboard. According to him, it was the first software that was worth using, because time invested on data entry results in fantastic results. He said, “You should try it yourself!”

It was the first time in many years that a sales rep told me that sales software was helping him to sell. I decided to check the methodology behind that software. And guess what? I found the book Sales Automation Done Right. Based on the ideas in the book, SalesWays was able to build Sales Cycle Manager, the software that makes the methodology come alive.

Enio Klein
Principal at K&G