Angels & Devils

We were tasked with the preparation of a training calendar for the year for the 270 country-wide sales professionals of the company. The annual performance appraisal process had just been completed, and the training needs for each individual, as agreed with the salesperson’s respective manager, had been recorded. Our job was to compile that information, consolidate the requirements, and make a list of Sales & Marketing Courses that need to happen over the next 12 months.

As we put the list together, a clear pattern was emerging: more than 80% of the courses requested by sales professionals to perform effectively next year were on understanding the company’s products deeply, and knowing more about the underlying technologies. Less than 5% of the sales force was new to the company, and every product, when introduced, had a training session specifically tailored for the sales people.

Our conversations with the senior management had already established that the quality of the sales conversations needed to improve. One, the cross-selling and up-selling to exploit new opportunities in existing customer places needs to be better, we were told. Two, the sales people were incapable, and hence reluctant to talk to the Business Heads. As a result, they stuck to the technology people in the firms they were selling to.

The other intriguing fact was the similarity in the training requirements put out by the sales people, and those requested for by the 100-odd pre-sales people in the selling company.

If both pre-sales and sales folks were to be equally proficient in product knowledge, wouldn’t that logically render one of them redundant?

In Raees, Shah Rukh Khan talks of how there is an Angel occupying one shoulder of every human being, and the Devil (shaitaan) taking the other shoulder. Into every situation and in every conversation, each one of us walk in, accompanied by these invisible appendages. Both of them, strategically perched close enough to an ear, keep chattering, and muttering messages into the ear closest to the shoulder they are sitting on. Our statements and responses are driven by which ear’s inputs we listen to and speak them out as our words.

“A Bore is a person who only talks about himself”, says Winston Churchill.

It is obvious what the Shaitaan, or the Devil is doing to the sales person. It implores, cajoles, persuades him/her to talk about the product, its features, and all the ‘bling-bling’ stuff we have packed into it.

The Devil loves comparisons at the feature level with competing products, infuses enough vanity in the sales person to take umbrage at any favourable comment that the customer may make about the competitor(s), or their products. The Devil shall not rest until it has reduced the sales person to a bore.

If the sales person is packed to the brim (thanks to all the product and technology training) with so much data, details and information about their products, he/she cannot help this knowledge from simply and effortlessly overflowing into the conversation. In fact, you can feel it in the salesperson’s tone. He/she is most excited and confident when talking about their product features. The salesperson’s demeanor is transformed when he/she opens the relevant product presentation on their laptop. It is squarely his/her territory, and he/she is now in complete control.

While the Devil is preoccupied with selling the product, the Angel is trying to get a word in on the primary purpose behind the sales profession: to solve a customer problem.

When possessed by the Devil, the salesperson may not even see a possible and occasional incompatibility between solving a customer problem and selling your product. Such possession by the Devil makes one request for more and more product training.

G K Chesterton says, “The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly.”?An Angel will understand the customer’s problem better, and use others (Pre-sales, Technology evangelists) in the company to recommend the features that matter.

The Devil wants the sale, at any cost. For an Angel, the Customer comes first.