There’s an interesting paper published by the Harvard Business Review based on a study of 800 sales professionals in live sales meetings. The authors of the study discovered eight types of sales people, only three of which were consistently effective. These three ‘types’–Experts, Closers and Consultants– made up only 37% of salespeople, and the other 63% of salespeople “actually drove down performance.”

They present some staggering figures:

• Only 9.1% of sales meetings result in a sale
• Only 1 out of 250 salespeople exceed their targets
• $1760 of profit per sale is needed just to cover the cost of failed sales meetings (assuming that the average meeting cost $160).

It’s interesting to see the notes on the five types of salespeople that hurt performance, and the authors’ suggestions on how these people could improve their sales performance.

It’s clear that the Storyteller, Focuser and Narrator types need help in understanding the fundamental skills of Probing.

Storytellers: Need to focus meetings…, to ‘read’ meetings, and to become more aware of their behavior.

Focusers: Need training in listening skills and must learn to use their technical savvy to meet customers’ needs.

Narrators: Need basic instruction in questioning techniques… Should shift their focus… to customers themselves.

The last two unsuccessful salespeople types, Aggressors and Socializers suffer from an imbalance of Relationship versus Opportunity focus. Aggressors would seem to have a higher Opportunity focus but poor Relationship focus as they “approach sales meetings purely as price negotiations.. however some customers dislike their combative approach.” The Socializers are highly Relationship-focused but have too little Opportunity focus, “[they] may initially impress customers with their friendly chat… [b]ut they usually don’t get past this, and close few deals.”

Recently, a customer of ours used a term that I really liked. We were talking about the process of selling, and he said something along the lines of how salespeople need to avoid becoming “Bag Divers.” I’d like to talk about this concept a bit more.

When you make your first visit to a potential customer, do you make sure you’ve learned everything you can about their business before you arrive?

Is your presentation tailored to them, or is it the same one you give to every customer on a first visit? If you are doing a demonstration, is it a general exposition of your solution, or is it a focused presentation on how your solution can help your customer reach their goals?

Remember, in most solution-style sales situations, you are there to help the customer identify their specific pain, and show them exactly how your company and product can help them.

If you arrive, hand out literature (by “diving into the bag”), and show a standard presentation, you are following a basic process and relying on your company brand to make the sale. If this is the case, you were likely hired to be an opportunity hunter and strong closer. This can work for some companies, but eventually a competitor will offer a solution that helps the customer more, unseating you and your market share in the process.

Consider this: when a brand new potential customer calls (an untapped goldmine for any salesperson), what do you do?

In many industries, if a brand new name calls, it’s usually because the caller wants product information and a price. With the Internet, potential buyers can even arm themselves with this type of information, and are capable of being further along in their buying process than ever before. When taking such a call, the “Bag Diver” would be keen to give the caller a price, and set up a convenient time for a demo. The reality is, the Bag Diver may not be giving any more information to the caller than can already be gleaned from the company website, and with that kind of canned response, the Bag Diver is almost certainly losing the opportunity to make a positive impression on the caller.

So what should you do?

Learn about your potential customer’s specific pains, and suggest how your company and product can help. It’s this type of approach that will keep you, and your solution, ahead of the pack in the eyes of your customers.

Will technology ever make the salesperson obsolete? In short, absolutely not.

This is a common refrain at every step in technological advancement. Back in the late 1990s, there were whispers of how Internet technology would remove the salesperson from the transaction between buyer and seller. Now, over a decade later, we know that is not the case.

For the buyer, Internet technology allows them to conduct research on their own (with popular and trusted review websites like CNET, and Consumer Reports), and go through early phases of their buying cycle without contacting any vendors.

But technology also plays a big role in helping the salesperson achieve their goals. Advances in technology help salespeople reach prospective customers better, and provide the tools to manage a salesperson’s day-to-day workload.

Technology is neither the buyer, nor the salesperson’s enemy; it facilitates both the buying and selling process. In fact, technology is even right at the core of what we do here at SalesWays. The sales tools we develop at SalesWays allow salespeople to expand their opportunity portfolio, driving up overall value, and bringing them the results they are looking for.

So, technology is not going to replace the salesperson or leave them behind; for those adopting the best tools, technology will propel them even further toward their goals.