Sales Jedi

Most organizations use the term “Sales Force” to address their sales teams. This conjures up the image of the Jedi from Star Wars saga who have the power to harness the “force” to deliver great outcomes. But are sales persons really Jedi and do they deliver results using only their unique powers?

           Before looking at this question it is important to understand the term “force”- the source of power. Force is the value proposition of the company for the customer. It covers the customer’s rational needs linked to benefits, costs, service etc. as well as emotional ones linked to pride, security, comfort etc. In a customer-centric approach the customer is put at the center and then the departments within a company build ways that serve the customer’s needs best. They also try to do it better than their competitors. The outcome of this effort is the value proposition or the “force”.

           Strength of the force is also critical here. If the force is weak the best of Jedi will fail or will work at sub optimal levels. Conversely, a strong field would be an enabler allowing peak performances. Many times I have seen that a company’s efforts fail when it tries to address declining or stagnant sales with rewards and recognition programmes including sometimes an element of punitive actions as well. The value proposition might have been too weak and it would have been better to address it first in these situations.

           It is also important here to appreciate the “trigger” which determines the sales effort. The trigger commences the chain of events at the customer’s end which culminates in a purchase. Trigger may also be strong or weak depending on the customer’s intensity of need, his past experiences, offer timing etc. Sales effort is inversely proportional to the strength of the trigger. Examples of weak triggers are - from the past a “water purifier” or in present a “home insurance policy”. Products with extremely strong triggers could be “mobile phones” or impulse purchase products like “candy”. Sales effort here is distinguished from distribution effort and the term strength is in reference to the former.

           If the force is strong and so is the trigger then the ability of the sales person to harness it makes him a Jedi who can deliver great outcomes. Harnessing would encompass identification of target customers or intermediaries, presentation of the value proposition to them and doing all the other actions which lead to closure of sales at the desired levels. While a person’s innate capability is very important there is a major role that an organization plays in developing this.

The organization must have real or virtual “Yodas” or teachers who can imbue the value proposition in the sales persons. This would enable the sales person place the value proposition in the customer’s mind as it was thought of by the company. This is the primary training that an organization should impart because secondary trainings, what is popularly put under “soft skills”, has an impact only if the primary ones have been effective.

As an example I can relate a personal experience of buying a camera sometime back. I had shortlisted three companies and visited their retail stores. Each was a leading brand with great products. However, the in-store experience of each was very different. Only one sales person was able to explain the camera best suited to me. He demonstrated the handful of features I would be using mostly (this would be out of a total of maybe 1000 or more mechanical and touchscreen combinations that these devices have). It was a perfect rendition of the value proposition to me and obviously I bought the camera from that particular store. The sales persons in the other stores were not knowledgeable about their products and so could not interest me. 

With the force and Yoda in place the Jedi would also need the laser sabre. The laser sabre would comprise of sales effectiveness tools, channel value proposition and physical infrastructure. Organizations also encourage their sales teams to higher performance by using rewards and recognition programmes. These work best when all other factors discussed previously are in place. Together all these factors comprise the sales assets – the Jedi’s laser sabre.

Let’s now go back to the question we started with – “Are sales persons really Jedi and do they deliver results using only their unique powers?” Sales persons are indeed Jedi in the sense that they have an ability to harness the value proposition and deliver it to the client. However, organizations need to build a compelling value propositions, align efforts with customer trigger, and have good trainers and sales assets to enable the Jedi to deliver good performance.

So the sales persons can be Jedi not just by having unique powers but also if the force is strong, effort is aligned with the trigger, guidance from Yodas’ is present and with a good laser sabre. The organizations that focus on building such eco-systems will have the most Jedi’s in their fold.

******