At the end of the day, it’s simple.
March 24, 2008
Phil Myers’ blog entry today caught my eye. Especially the last paragraph that starts: “At the end of the day, it’s simple. Create a product or service that your buyers want to buy and the rest takes care of itself.”
I have been involved in several conversations of late around growing sales. On more than one occasion I have heard the statement: “in order to grow sales you need to increase sales activities.” In other words, sales grow when sales people and others responsible for sales in an organization make more phone calls, send more emails, schedule more meetings, attend more networking events, etc. etc. I couldn’t agree more. But it also made me wonder why it is so hard to actually get people to increase their sales related activities.
In some cases it seems it is a result of having the wrong people in the wrong seats on the bus. Some people are just not good or just don’t like being involved in sales activities. And if somebody is no good at something, they typically avoid doing it. But I think there is something deeper going on here, which brings me back to Phil Myers’ blog entry.
At the end of the day, it is all about having products and services that our buyers want to buy. This is the essence of innovation: creating products and services that meet the unmet needs of our buyers. Or as Clayton Christenson has taught me to think about it: creating products and services that our buyers want to hire to help them get important jobs done. As I think about all of the great salespeople I have known over the years, one common trait stands-out above all others: these great salespeople were all selling products and services that were in high demand. Sure these people were true professionals, and great with people. They had a strong worth ethic and high integrity. They maximized their sales activities every day, and they knew how to close deals. But they also knew how to pick hot products. And they weren’t shy about moving on to the next company or the next hot product when their current products cooled off.
So if you are thinking about how to get your salespeople to increase their sales activities don’t stop at the traditional techniques like more incentives, more training, and more carrots and sticks. Ask yourself: do my buyers want to buy my products and services? In many cases this question might lead to a bunch of additional questions to consider:
- Who are my buyers?
- What job(s) are they trying to get done?
- What alternatives can they use to get the job done besides my product/service?
- What criteria will they use to determine which alternative they will hire to help get their job done?
Who knows, these questions may lead you to the real answer to the question: how do I grow my sales? That is, I need to understand my buyers better and make sure I have created products and services that they want to buy.
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One Response to “At the end of the day, it’s simple.”
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Hi,
The link to Phil Meyers blog entry doesn’t work. Can point to the correct log as I’d like to read his post. I can’t find it on his blog…
http://www.tunedinblog.com/
Saeed