Sales Executive... slightly more positive

On my last post I went after management for throwing a fresh faced SE to the wolves of the cold and cruel world. A world full of cold calling, leading chasing, and "No Solicitation" signs. Let me clarify the emotion of the post. I love to see young, hungry salespeople make it happen in their respective fields. Just like I enjoy seeing a rookie NFL quarterback start a Hall of Fame career. However, if you follow the NFL these days, there have been some great young quarterbacks that have been asked to take on to much, to early in their careers. Whether it be lack of experience, a bad front line, or poor play calling, there have been some marque names fizzle out like a damp bottle rocket. Potentially great sales reps die off because of their experience within the first three to six months on the job.

As a veteran sales person, my heart goes out to inexperienced sales reps who are given a list of accounts, a box of business cards, and marginal product and sales training. Unlike the aforementioned NFL rookies who grew up in the sport and attended top tier universities to sharpen their skills, there are very few college courses that teach prospective sales people the art and science of sales. It is one of the few fields that has no higher learning support. With that stated, the next generation of sales executives have to take accountability for their future as well; especially the pandemic of piss poor grammar and spelling (STOP TEXTING SO DAMN MUCH!!!).

Luckily the new generation of professionals have more access to quality free resources to supliment their skill development. It has gotten better over the past few years with the growth and reach of sites like Linkedin, which has a wonderful community of dedicated sales professional. I recommend that sales people of all ages and experience levels should look into groups like; Sales Best Practices, Sales Gravy, Sales Play Book, etc. No longer do we have to troll through endless pages of the next great sales strategy... we can be part of a community of dedicated sales professionals.

One of the primary goals of this blog and the supporting services my team are looking to offer is an independent development program for individuals and companies looking to acquire, grow, and retain excited sales professionals.

Sales Executive

"The hardest high paying job, or the easiest low paying job."
                                                                    ~ anonymous

When I hear the title "Sales Executive" (SE) many visuals come to mind; A-type personality, net new business development, a professional with A.D.H.D., hunter, closer, and on with a massive killer instinct. A position for people who if they were born in another century would have been the trail blazer into the wild wild west. Take Daniel Boone out of the 18th century Appalachian Mountains, dress him in a logoed polo shirt and pressed suit pants, and you got a President's Club winner for decades. In some instances modern SE's are an urban pioneers. Instead of guns and fur traps, the SE's tools are a box of business cards and marketing material collateral. The rest is exploring a given territory. Unlike the salty woodsmen of old, with their years of experience and feel for the lay of the land, the professional explorer today are typically wide-eyed college grads.

I know that talent pools have to be continually replenished and younger, less experience people need places to start. But I am not a proponent of throwing a fresh-faced twenty-something into the wilderness of lead generation, prospecting, door swinging, and cold calling. The sales force is the closest place to a companies future revenue. It does not benefit anyone to have young inexperienced representatives out in the market! HR is constantly trolling the college campuses for new recruits that are as green as a buck private, hiring managers are swamped with endless streams of mundane resumes, and the young hire gets their teeth kicked in because they don't have the competency to make things happen.

Young sales executives should be put into a six month training program where they handle customer service matters; learning how the company operates once a client has been brought on. Companies need to recognize that youth energy burns out really quick when they are out in the field getting doors slammed on them, deals falling through the cracks, which can trickle up to the more experienced reps who have to pick up the slack. In my mid twenties I saw hundreds of reps inside and outside of my company come in, train up, and burn out in less than a year.

It took me nearly five years of account management and outside sales to feel comfortable in the traditional sales executive role of hunting for net new business. I became like a precession surgeon doing exploratory surgery in my accounts because I knew how to work efficiently enough to weed and seed my prospect pipeline based off of constant practice in my trade. These skills are gained through trial and error -- more like an education at the school of hard knocks. That is why I hate to hear a sales manager ask new SE's to call around to other successful reps in the company to learn how they "did it." Are you kidding me?!? It takes 10,000 hours of training and execution to become elite in a given field... How the heck is a telephone call or web cam conversation going to allow a new SE to become successful?

To be continued...

Part Two: Who are Sales People?

After coming to grips with the possibility that my profession would have little merit in a post-apocalypse zombie world, I stepped back on the grim scenario to attempt to answer the question, “Who are sales people?” To show mercy on the readers, there will be no schizophrenic philosophical debates between me, myself and I, or the use of high priced academic ramblings to define a sales person. Simply stated, a sales person is anyone who interacts with a client* during their buying cycle. Outside/inside sales executives, account managers, customer service representatives, district managers, receptionists, call center representatives, and especially delivery personnel. This sample of departments and job titles represents a body complete that I would like to call… (prepare yourself for a catch phrase)… the collective customer experience!     

The collective customer experience (CCX) like the ancient Greek god Hermes, has many different faces on one body. The CCX is numerous customer facing individuals representing a single organization. If your organization has a retail floor, this group is massive. So it is vital that companies have a uniform approach to their CCX or have the entire organization on point, especially if there is any chance or opportunity to interact with a client. On the latter point, Zappos.com is mastering the concept of having every employee trained and battle tested in order to work on the frontlines of customer sales. If you want to see a poor example of this point, go to Wal-Mart when you don’t know where something is located – I bet you’ll spend a blood-boiling about of time searching. If you were to locate a friendly blue vest employee, there is a good chance they will not know either.

I’ll periodically come back to the collective customer experience in future post; but for now I want to focus on the first three titles listed above; sales executives, account managers, and customer service. In my humble opinion traditional sales roles have been blurred by technology, ease of information gathering, wild economic swings, and the need for our organization’s Greek Hermes to wear multiple hats to go along with all those faces.

In the next post, I’ll take a look at the “sales executive” role, which is the traditional “hunter” sent out into the world with only business cards and a quota. Once that sale has landed, I’ll step into the cubicles of our account management team, which is ready to take over long term management and work to grow and cross sell the newborn client. Lastly, I’ll look at the customer service team that gets involved to keep orders flowing through the cycle, resolving issues, and becoming the most valuable group to clients that are mature in the life cycle with your organization. If you are not investing serious time, exceptional talent, and massive resources into your customer service team, may all things holy be on your side! (If you’re not, and need help, contact me ASAP)

As this journey continues, I really am excited to explore the great and spacious new title of “business development manager,” which is the beautiful new spawn of sales and account management without any of the paperwork. Is this the next evolutionary rung for sales staff? Or is it just a cheap marketing plow to throw off overbearing, pain-in-the-belt customers that swamp great sales people with mundane chores? If you’re worried that I’ve forgotten about inside sales teams… fret not! We will have an entire series on office based sales teams, which will tie beautifully into our series on “How to correct retail sales pariahs.”

* A “client” is a respectful way to represent your qualified prospects, new partners, transactional customers, and long standing relationships.

Part One: Who are Sales People?

A few years back I had to opportunity to be part of a volunteer program to mentor teenagers through a non-profit organization. Our leadership team came from a multi-faceted background of educators, lawyers, doctors, bankers and then two lonely salesmen… yours truly being one, and the other salesmen in the room was my friend, Lou, a VP of a larger janitorial supply company in town. The responsibility of the adult leaders centered on providing an environment of stewardship that would allow the youth to plan, organize, and participate in a wide variety of religious, physical, and community activities. We also tried to promote the older youth, ages 16-18 years old to begin thinking about possible career paths. To help facilitate this process, we had a monthly career night, which we would take the youth out to a local business to have them see the inner workings of the industry and allow them to interact with the movers and shakers in the business. As leaders, we tempered our expectations of how much our youth would really get out of these “field trips,” knowing their minds were pulled in a hundred directions, and a career was as distant as the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. However, there was one particular career night that I gained the most of anyone.     

We had this group of young men who had amazing imaginations and the wit to go along. On this particular occasion we had the youth out to Lou’s company for a discussion on the benefits of salespeople and the occupation. I was asked to give a few minutes on my background. At the time I was a national account manager for the world’s largest printing company. Lou also spoke a little and also had his top salesman address the crowd. As an added benefit for the kids to come out, we always had a nice desert treat afterwards to ensure the youth stayed the entire time. While we were all enjoying a refreshing Klondike bar one of the aforementioned witty young men asked a rhetorical question. He wanted to know what would be the best profession to have during a zombie apocalypse that resulted in the fall of society. As hilarious as it was for the youth, the leaders quickly jumped on the opportunity to engage the youth.

They spent the next few minutes going through the professions represented in the room and the ones the youth could list off…. The youth knew that doctors, firemen, and law enforcement were a must. Someone listed off that engineers and construction would be vital to rebuild. I heard mechanics to keep the machines going, cooks to cook, teachers to teach, lawyers and judges to arbitrate, and even a few shout outs for politicians (hopefully not the same ones we have now). As we were throwing out professions, I looked over to Lou and asked, “What would the salesmen do in this new society?” He shrugged and joking said, “hopefully they don’t run out of chicken and cattle, because we might only be good for that.”

After that momentary identity crisis and lack of contribution post-apocalypse, I began to contemplate the actual contribution to society sales people bring, and more importantly – “who are sales people?” It shocked me how deep this question took me down the rabbit hole.