As the economy rolls on, sales myths still permeate product and professional service sales forces trying to hit their forecasted sales quotas. Like urban myths, many of these business beliefs just continue to proliferate without identified authorship or business validity.
Here are the top ten sales myths that are currently en vogue:
Myth One
Spending a disproportionate amount of your available sales cycle selling time with a decision influencer will increase your sales success.
Reality
Hitting sales targets is a time management issue. How many prospects do I have? Which are qualified? How many can I talk with or see in person in a single day? How quickly can I move them through the required sales steps and how fast can I get them to take an action step to buy from me? These variables all are relevant in selling.
Decision influencers (usually middle-level managers) are communication liaisons for your business value. When you present and sell them, you are asking to have a non-professional salesperson communicate your business value for you to the decision makers. When focusing on middle-level managers, you are saying A) you do not have the sales skills to get to the decision makers B) you are hoping they will be able to discuss your business value as well as you can. Can you sell middle-level managers? Yes, but it is a slow non-preferred process.
Myth Two
Dropping prices will increase sales in the long-term.
Reality
Time and time again, every business segment that has followed a commodity-based pricing schema has failed. Selling down and by price is a short-term sales model that cannot sustain financial integrity. Repeat customers buy value; single sale customers buy price.
Myth Three
Business networking is better than cold calling for lead generation.
Reality
This is another urban myth propitiated by those who do not want to cold call. Sales reps who will not cold call are half-cycle salespeople. Yes, networking can create leads, but the quantity and the amount of time involved consistently will never match your efforts of cold calling 50 C-level executives each day. Networking is a long-term, minimum volume lead generation technique for salespeople. Cold calling is the sales pipeline of success.
Myth Four
Sales training is a cost center.
Reality
Most CEOs do not spend enough on sales training. They believe that it is more important to invest in development or operations staff training than sales training. In fact, sales training is more important than technical education and is a true business profit center investment. Without sales, you don't need development. CEOs can always subcontract development work - but try subcontracting your sales!
Myth Five
Clients buy technology or business services.
Reality
Clients never buy technology or business services. Account managers who sell business services or technology usually sell less. Clients buy pain management.
Myth Six
Because you were successful in the past, you should be successful this year.
Reality
Salespeople often defer to a comfort zone of auto selling - doing the same things year after year. This repetition implies that all prospects and customers are the same - that they are not individuals and that they don't change.
Buying needs are changing. Do you know what will drive them to action steps in 2009 or 2010?
Myth Seven
Marketing department responsibility should be focused on brochures, web site communication, and tradeshow management.
Reality
PR is not revenue; marketing is not revenue; and advertising is not revenue. Revenue is revenue. The marketing department's primary business responsibility should be creating qualified sales leads for the sales team.
Myth Eight
It is the sales management's responsibility to close sales deals for you.
Reality
Sales management's responsibility is to help you sell as a salesperson. That means increasing qualified lead traffic, supervising operational issues that affect your deals, updating your sales training skills, and acting as an intermediary with corporate management. That does not mean going to every sales presentation or meeting every Fortune 1000 prospect in person. Many times, this becomes the norm instead of the exception because sales management usually carries the department's quota as a whole and revenue is revenue. Why pursue sales management if you have to close every deal?
Myth Nine
The more strategic partners you have, the more sales leads you will generate.
Reality
Strategic partnerships and alliance management is a full-time job. It is definitely quality over quantity that counts. Most firms have many strategic relationships that are worthless. Like any investment of time and money, alliances need to be quantified with an assigned quota for revenue generation and minimum expectations of lead generation volume to warrant the relationship. Partnerships must have an annual ROI or their time and effort is worthless.
Myth Ten
Question-based sales probing will increase sales.
Reality
The fact is asking detailed questions of prospects too early in the engagement process actually ends most sales cycles. You cannot cold call or engage a vice president of a large company the first time, start pinging them with probing business questions and expect them to answer. This myth is propitiated through fluff sales training programs and books designed for insurance and car salespeople. To achieve sales success to senior management you must first earn their respect as a business peer, not a vendor. You must validate your knowledge about industry pains, so you can earn the right to ask investigative questions about their business needs when it is appropriate. The key to sales success is to avoid probing questions too early. Instead, act like a strategic advisor and communicate your business value up front -- EARN THE RIGHT to ask probing questions.
"MYTH": a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon. -- Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Follow Gerhard Vierthaler on twitter.
