Salespeople who are 'Dead on Arrival'

This is not about Arthur Miller's 1949 award winning play that featured 'Willy Loman' and his trials and tribulations as a salesman. This is about salespeople who are what I call, 'Dead on Arrival' because they have not bothered to learn about my needs, my organization or even me! I say not bothered to learn because so much is available at our fingertips, via the internet, this is not just lazy but a waste of time for all concerned. I know we're in the age of 'Business Development' (instead of 'Selling') along with data-driven software to help with opportunity targeting but at some point, it is a 'person' that will show up at a sales call not the algorithm that crunched all the information. A recent example was of 2 people arriving at my Silicon Valley office hoping to strike up a sales opportunity and partnership. Neither knew much about what we do or what our mission was all about never mind how they could align their organization with us. The most professionally embarrassing point was when they sat in on a group presentation by our CEO and upon meeting him, asked who he was and what he did?! A masterclass in not listening as our CEO introduced himself clearly but the 2 fellows were busy tapping away on their phones! Amazing!

It's not all negative news though. There are lots of great approaches to having the sales teams be thoughtful and engaging with their sales efforts. In addition, in order to 'sell' anything it is fair to say that you'll want to develop a relationship with your buyer or the buying group first? I really like the Covey approach of 'Helping Clients Succeed' and have been an advocate since my time in the professional services sector.

However, I've recently been very impressed with the approach of 'InfoTeam Sales Process Consulting AG' led by the superbly professional Steve Landuyt, (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/stevelanduyt/). As you know, finding the right provider, the right process, getting your team to devote a couple of days for immersive and hands-on learning is a monumental task when there are revenue targets to achieve. In the spirit of transparency, we've recently been through the 'RFP for a Sales and Account Management' process provider and Steve and his team won hands down. Why?! They not only took the time to get to know us and our business, but they absolutely customized the sales process to fit within the exact sector where we operate. Being prepared is something so often neglected but so easy to help win the day. By the way, Steve also got the buy-in from the whole executive team before the learning started and even remembered everyone's names, even the CEO's!

This is not an advertisement for InfoTeam Sales Process Consulting AG but rather a gesture of goodwill as they deliver exactly what the new digital world needs and also to ensure that your salespeople are not showing up at their next appointment 'Dead on Arrival'.