As seen on FASTCOMPANY.

If you have a sales manager worth his salt, not only can he manage your sales force when everyone wants one of whatever product or service you are selling, but he can fix whatever happens when sales tank.

Frankly speaking, methinks there are few sales managers who can do this.

If you are experiencing this in your organization look for five things.

1. A reliance on product training, not sales training. Too many companies conduct product training sessions, hoping in some backward form of logic that customers buy features of products and not solutions to their painful issues. I think it is just simpler to do product training than sales training. Don’t mix up the two, and realize that increasing the amount of product training will most likely not result in added sales.

2. Not enough listening. This is generic, but it almost always can be detected. This is closed connected with alignment issues, see number 4. Good sales people know how to listen, and how to listen for the issues that are bothering the prospects. Only by good listening can the sales rep advance the ball. Look here second.

3. This is too basic but true. In hundreds and hundreds of sales calls that I have listened to or participated in, in almost 75% of the cases, there was an opportunity to ask for the order. For whatever reason, the sales rep did not do this. Ask for the order. Highlight this one on the chart above.

4. Alignment issues happen most frequently with an experienced sales force and even good reps. Basically, they are so good at knowing what the prospect needs, that they diagnose the problem apparently too fast for the prospect. Read yesterday’s post on this key problem. This is often called being out of alignment.

5. No energy in the sales force. This might be a cultural thing inside your company, but it is easy detect by outsiders. Your sales force should have a positive energy, an almost StarTrek Enterprise force field of excitement and energy. If you lack it, you know it, and you must fix it. If your sales manager can’t, if it is just not who he is, find someone else who can fill this role. As someone told me once, in a sales conversation someone had better get excited, and it is easy for it to be YOU.

If you want a poster of the above graphic, just email me and I can send one to you. Ed. Note: What GL failed to mention is that there is a charge of $20 for each poster. He regrets the omission.

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Jed Clampett was the main character on the hit TV comedy in the early 60′s, Beverly Hillbillies. Backstory: Jed was out huntin’ for some food, missed his shot, and up from the ground came a “bubblin’ crude, oil that is.” Watch the 54-second intro clip here:

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Ok, remember that.

To improve your sales efforts, the first thing is to remember the basics.

1. Find out the current situation by asking questions. Maybe it is your own natural curiousity, but whatever it is, for you to find out if you can help your prospect or customer, you have to ask questions. It’s like meeting a pretty girl at a party, your first question is not “will you marry me?” You have to ask questions, and the more questions you ask, the more interest you are showing in the prospect, and the more you are discovering about their current situation, issues or concerns.

2. Jed’s Rule. Picture this….Jed was out hunting, right? His shot broke through the ground and up came oil. I have seen this happen countless times but in sales situations, just countless. The sales rep asks questions, and gets answers, and then asks yet another question, even if the answer describes a situation that can be solved, fixed or rescued by the rep’s products or services. Many times, rep’s questions are disjointed and do not flow naturally one from the other like they do in normal conversation. Think of your questions like Jed out hunting…when his shot struck oil, he didn’t keep shooting.  He started digging. That is exactly what great sales reps do when they uncover something uncomfortable about the prospect’s current situation. They have struck oil too, and need to start digging. They do not keep hunting and shooting aimlessly. They should start drilling with more questions.  Why don’t sales rep do this?   Simple–they are more concerned about the questions than the answers.

So next time you are talking with a customer, remember old Jed. He was much smarter than you think.