The Seller’s Suitcase
One of the first corporate jobs I did, as a newly hired employee in the?trade marketing?department of a well-known motor vehicle manufacturer, was to?analyse?what our salespeople carried in their?suitcases?during their business trips, i.e. which materials they actually used to promote products and services. My boss back then wanted?to understand what would be really useful to make the “value of the offer” reach the client in the clearest and most convincing way.?What had originally seemed a minor job, in fact allowed me to take a very interesting and educational journey?to discover both the?sales stages, and the?customer experience?which is (or should be) linked to them. Here’s what happened…
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The Sales Book
The?management’s?goal was to create a?collection of materials, documents and marketing tools?– that we in the business called the “Sales Book” – which would prove useful to the sales agents to do their jobs more effectively.?
The project was a?success?and eventually our “Sales Book” became a portal dedicated to sales professionals (which was a brand new thing in the early 2000s), where they could find all the information concerning the?offer?and also question?market trends,?draft estimates?etc. However, it wasn’t easy at all. In order to create an effective architecture we had to consider all the?modalities of engagement client/seller, trying to detect all the different moments and, if possible, to anticipate requirements, difficulties and?mistakes.
Try to step into our shoes:
In other words, a whole list of?questions?that needed answers. Like good “marketers” we had little or no sales experience in the field. We only had two possibilities: either imagining all the different situations from scratch. or… packing our own?suitcases?and accompanying some salespeople and closely observe their work.
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The Diary of our Journey in Sales
Travelling with the sales team is one of the most educational experiences I have ever had and I highly recommend it to all those marketing agents who are filled with notions but distant from real business life, like I was at the time. Between?strategy?and practice there is normally a substantial gap, which is filled by the common sense, the instinct and the?abilities?of the individuals; however, without diminishing personal creativity, this gap can be managed and optimized through?appropriate strategies and tools.
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The best sales agents broke up their visits in different moments, which represented the different?phases of the business relationship, each one with its particular objectives, specific challenges and special tools to overcome them.
Here is a quick overview of each phase:
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Marketing in support of Sales
Since I carried out that research, the creation of the “Sales Book” or – if you prefer – the study of the set of tools to include in the?seller’s suitcase, has always been a?fundamental activity?for me.
A good sales book?should be presented both in paper?(sales agents are an old fashioned category)?and digital format?(perhaps in a private area of your company website).?
The documents included should always be updated, and the “travelling” staff should always carry the latest version?(and in case of?updates available online, enable notifications for new releases).
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Therefore if you still haven’t done it, I advise you to check what your sales agents usually carry in their?suitcases?and when and how they use these tools. On the one hand you will be able to suggest some adjustments?to make their work more effective; on the other hand you will learn a lot about the different?sales stages?and, by observing their behaviour and that of their clients, you will manage to create materials that will suit their work best and that will really promote the?customer journey.
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Looking back at those moments, I realize that the?Diario di un Consulente?blog was born to be a long and open?Sales Book, available for everyone who needs tools and advice to better manage their clients. That “minor job” also inspired the stages of the?Sales Ethics?method which, many years later, I codified with?Alice Alessandri. Above all, thanks to that experience I discovered my passion for business activities which, shortly after, led me to try the?job of seller?giving me the opportunity to go on a wonderful trip I have never come back from.