| Ask the Sales Doctor |
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| This is a weekly column transcribed from my Radio Show. "Ask the Sales Doctor" is the segment of the show in which I answer questions sent in by listeners. Send in your questions by mail, email, fax or phone. If I pick yours to be "Question of the Week", you'll win an autographed copy of my best-selling book, The Six Steps to Excellence in Selling. |
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| Taking Over a New Territory |
Tom writes:
"I'm brand new to selling and have taken over a territory that has been under-served for over a year. I have a few customers that will deliver about half my quota. How can I get going quickly and earn the business of my customers and grow my territory 50% in one year?"
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Warren answers:
 That's a fabulous question. You know, a lot of salespeople, Tom, are trained in what's called the go-get-em model which is they get hired by a good company. They've got wonderful products and services, and their sales training goes something like this, "Here's your territory, here's a card, here's the phone. Go get 'em, Tom." And then you say, "Well, go get what? What am I supposed to do first? What am I supposed to do second?"
Well you're actually in a pretty good position. It's unfortunate that your territory has been under-served, but you do have customers. So that's the first place to start. Imagine, Tom, if you were in the type of business where you had nothing going and no clients, and you were starting in a brand new "cold" territory. You'd really have to scramble to create 100% of your quota.
In this case you've already got some business. So this is what I'm going to tell you. You want to go back to all the current clients that are currently buying from your company. And if it's a face-to-face business you're in, get on the phone. Make the call. Tell them you want to come see them on a particular date, and book yourself into an appointment. In other words, work by appointment. Just don't show up, or tell them you're going to stop by when you're in the area. It demeans them, and it demeans you. So you call the clients up. You get a firm appointment.
And once you're there, warm up. Don't go into business right away unless you're involved with those one or two percent that don't want to talk about anything but business. And they'll let you know. The rest of the people, they want to warm up. They want to find out what's new with you, what's new with them. Some safe things to talk about are the weather, or the local sports team. I'd stay away from politics or religion or whatever's on the front page of the newspaper. Or just talk in general about how's business going, some industry specific things. Just warm up the conversation.
And now before you do anything that involves offering a product or service, ask them what problems they've had that you could take care of. A lot of customers aren't going to get into a buying mode unless they've got what's on the back of their mind taken care of. Either an order was shipped in improperly, or there was a shortage, or something was broken, or just something didn't go right. There was a special order that is lost in the system somewhere...Your main goal is to get the person open to new ideas, and the best way to do that is to take care of problems.
Then ask what's new with them. Maybe there's something new in their business, an emerging trend. Maybe there's a new product that they're getting a lot of interest in, or a new service that they've been asked to provide, or what have you. Just get them talking about their business. And then talk about what their current needs might be. If they've bought a particular type of product...Your question doesn't say what business you're in. But let's say you're in the nurseryman's supply business, you might start asking them what some of their current needs are, fertilizer, perennials, annuals, seeds, whatever.
Once you identify what their current needs are and take care of those, then you move on to offering a new idea or a new product or a new service. The easiest way to grow your business is to keep offering new ideas and new services to your current client base. And a lot of the times you say, "Oh, they probably read the brochures. They understand our marketing guidelines. They know what we offer." And you know what? The sad truth is they only know what they buy from you today. So your job is to expand the horizons.
And then - here is the absolute, jet-fueled technique - ask permission to ask them for referrals. Tell them that you're new to the territory, and that you obviously want to grow, and you're actually trying to grow your business by 50%, and you want to do that by maintaining your service level. Ask them if you know anybody you could be calling on, because referrals are five times more likely to buy than people who don't come to you from a strong referral.
Three other quick ideas...Number one, you've got lots of inactive clients, or orphan accounts as I call them because your territory was under-served by the person that was there before you. Go into those files [blowing sound], dust all that dust off them, give those people a call. And then just tell them, "Look, you've been orphaned by my company, and I'm calling to adopt you." And it's such a cute line. The people will laugh; they'll like it. And they'll probably give you the appointment to come in and see them.
And then, use your eyes and ears. I worked with a salesperson in a small town in northern Minnesota a couple of months ago. And we kept driving from one small account to the other while we drove by these huge factories. And I kept saying, "What about that, what about that?" "Oh, I don't have time to do that. I've gotta go here, here, and there." And finally after about three hours I said, "No, we don't have time to go see this small account right now. Back up the car - actually it was a van - back up the van. We're going over there to Mega Company." And the interesting thing was, we went in there cold, no referral, and the buyer saw us. Now that really opened the eyes of that salesperson. And indeed, we got to the other call. We made the call on the smaller account also. But what I'm saying is use your eyes and ears. Just don't get into a rut and just go over the same territory over and over and over again.
Now the final idea is something that's non-traditional in terms of the sales process, but it's called: get involved in something. And I would say get involved in two things. Let's take the nurseryman, for example. That person might get involved in a commercial real estate organization, and maybe in a Rotary or a Lion's or a Kiwanis. I'm not talking about a trade organization that meets the needs of your business, like the Landscaper's Association because you're going to meet people just like you. What I mean is expand your horizons and get involved in not more than two things.
So, Tom, you asked a great eyedropper question, and I gave you the firehose answer. But I've got a very soft spot in my heart for new salespeople. In fact, one of the reasons I started my business is because I hated seeing about one-third of salespeople new to the business fail every year. I knew I could change that because the turnover in the companies where I worked when I was a sales manager was always under 10%. And I said, heck, I've got a three to one ratio of performance in the companies I've worked in that's better than the industry standards. Some companies have 100% turnover. So I'm happy that you wrote in and asked that question. If you take that advice, you'll build that territory to its previous level and beyond.
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Getting Nosy
As a financial advisor I have to ask people some pretty nosy questions. This is easy to do after I've developed...
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– Warren
Wechsler |
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