My mom was staying with me, and her legs just gave out. We decided to head to the Emergency Room of a local hospital and ensure she hadn’t injured something in the fall. Within a few minutes in the ER, she was diagnosed with low sodium levels, and they decided to admit her. After 5 or 6 hours, I sought someone to get an ETA on the room. I was told there were plenty of rooms but insufficient staff on the floor to accommodate another patient. I asked how long it could take and was told that the worst case was a couple of days. I can certainly understand capacity issues, but two days in the emergency room? She was taken to her room after 4:00 AM – 15 hours after arrival.
As a professional problem solver, I find it hard to believe that there is no other available option than having an 86-year-old woman on a gurney in the emergency room for 15 hours.
To make matters worse, no attempt was made to make the ER simulate a patient room. No food, water, additional blankets, or pillows were offered to make my mom more comfortable. I had to interrupt the staff at the nurse’s station to ask for some water and an extra pillow. I was wrapped up in my coat because it was freezing there, and I sat in a chair resembling my elementary school’s cafeteria chairs for 15 hours. It was miserable. No one apologized, updated us on the progress of a room, or acknowledged that we were not having an ideal experience.
While there, we interacted with a steady stream of technicians, nurses, and doctors. If I had to describe the overall feeling, I would say “disengaged.” Everyone was doing their job, but they weren’t happy about it. You could hear them talking and joking with each other at the nurse’s station, but once in the room with my mom, they did their work only. I even tried pointing out that my mom had been a nurse, thinking it could help create a connection. They were not interested.
The other thing I noticed was a level of specificity that impacted the experience. If my mom asked a nurse to use the restroom, they would leave to find a nursing assistant, which at one point took more than an hour. I understand the productivity that is supposed to come from specialization, but it delivered a very poor patient experience.
During the night, I met a more personable nurse. I noted she was wearing a sweatshirt from a local University, and we discussed her alma mater. She was a traveling nurse, which gave her the flexibility to care for her ailing mother. She shared that her shifts were never in the same department or with the same staff because of how the scheduling was done. I asked if that type of schedule made it hard to make friends in the workplace. Her response was one of those moments when many client situations flashed before my eyes. She said didn’t want to develop friends. She said she just wanted to come in and get her work done because all the permanent staff did was complain.
She shared that the older nurses were great mentors and helped her learn when she started. Today, she claimed most of the more tenured nurses had left the profession, and the newer nurses weren’t trained properly and had no one to show them the ropes. Hearing this story, it ran through my head – why aren’t you helping them? Even the talkative one was disengaged and also complaining.
There was one bright spot, and it was Calvin. Calvin transported my mom to imaging at about 4:00 PM the first day. He was personable and kind. He talked and joked with my mom, assured her she was in good hands, and made his few minutes with us pleasant and memorable. A few days later, I ran into him in the elevator, and he remembered me and asked how my mom was doing. Calvin was the highlight of the hospital stay and possibly the entire two-month period.
Lesson #1: Unhappy Employees Impact Your Customers
I read a statistic yesterday that 53% of Americans are unhappy at work. Unhappy people are probably doing “just enough,” like most of the hospital ER staff. Consider what a “just enough” experience feels like for your customers.
Think about how your employees interface with your customers. Are they just about completing their work? Or do they create pleasant and memorable experiences? Do you have disengaged employees? Do they complain to the other staff? Are they poisoning the well of employee happiness? Are your employees complaining to your customers? What impression do they leave with your customers? How difficult do these employees make it for you to find better employees? How can you improve your culture and make your business attractive to happy, engaged employees?
When I ask business owners questions like this, I often hear, “I’m paying them; that should be enough.” It’s not enough. Owners and managers must pay attention to their teams, notice when an employee is disengaged, and try to fix it. If they can’t, it’s better for the employee, the owner, and the customers if they find another position. Disengaged employees hurt our healthcare system, businesses, and educational institutions. Don’t settle for a warm body. Find the people who care.
I will never go to this hospital system again.
Lesson #2: Minimize the Impact When Something Goes Wrong
What happens when your system is disrupted? Do you react and try to improve the situation to minimize the impact on your customers? Or do you fail to recognize that your internal problem negatively impacts your customers? Systems go down, employees call out, and machines break down. It’s your job to identify and quickly minimize the impact on your customers.
I was on a JetBlue flight delayed out of Richmond many years ago. After the announcement, the team wheeled out a cart full of drinks and snacks for their customers waiting at the gate. It was impressive, especially compared to what happens with the other carriers. The cost is minimal, but the impact is substantial.
Were there snacks for people at the ER that day? Could they have moved the patients who would be there for a prolonged period to one end of the ER and tried to minimize the noise? Could they have acknowledged that it was an unpleasant experience and asked if they could make us more comfortable? Could management realize that their staffing issues put undue pressure on the ER and change the process to accommodate longer stays? Could they have floater personnel that can be redirected to a floor when new patient needs increase? They could do all of those things; they just didn’t.
Take a look at your processes from the customer’s viewpoint. Do they have to wait for email responses? How quickly do you deliver bad news? Does your sales team avoid telling a customer there is a problem until the customer asks? What do your conference rooms and other meeting places look like? Do customers feel welcomed, or are you moving boxes out of the way to make a place for them to sit?
Your customers have choices. They will not continue to work with you if they have terrible experiences.
My Mom was a little dynamo. She walked two miles multiple days a week, ran a bible study class, was a prison minister, and a lector at church. She had a cough for six months before her diagnosis. She went to her internist, who diagnosed allergies and sent her home with various medications. She went back every couple of weeks for months with the same diagnosis – allergies. She was coughing so hard at one point that she went to urgent care. Same diagnosis. I went with her multiple times and tried to impress upon the Doctor that this didn’t seem normal to me. I told them she was missing valuable time with her family, which wasn’t like her. I asked them to investigate further. They told me I was worrying too much. They listened to her lungs and heart, did a chest x-ray, and told her to return in a couple of weeks if she didn’t feel better.
I took her to my allergist twice, but he couldn’t find anything she was allergic to. He concluded that the cough resulted from irritation caused by the cough. Six months after the cough started, she was referred to a pulmonologist who looked at the same tests that the others had looked at and ordered a CT scan. What made her so smart? Something her internist should have known. I learned later that if you have ever smoked, you should have a chest CT once a year. Like most Americans, my Mom had been a smoker. However, she had been smoke-free for 35 years.
The results of the CT were disturbing, so the pulmonologist ordered a PET scan. After the PET scan, my Mom made an appointment with her internist to review the results because her pulmonologist was on vacation. When we were called back, the nurse noted we were there for the PET scan results. Once in with the doctor, he asked – “so what brings you here today?” The nurse reminded him of the purpose of the appointment, and he responded that he hadn’t looked at the test results yet. He pulled them up on the screen, spent approximately 30 seconds looking at them, and then announced that it was metastatic cancer. My Mom said she didn’t want to spend the remaining time sick from chemo, and the doctor asked if she had a DNR. My Mom said no, and he instructed the nurse to get one. He and my Mom signed it, and we were out of there in 5 minutes. She gets a death sentence, and they don’t even talk about the options or the expectations of what those six months would look like. I watch the news and hear stories about treatments that don’t necessarily make you sick. I tried to ask about those options, and the Dr. was busy signing a DNR and telling her to pin it to the back of her door where the Rescue Squad would see it.
I hate this guy.
Most of the time, things are what they are supposed to be. Every once in a while, they are not. Many people in Richmond have allergies, but it’s not normal to cough for six months. If you go through the motions of your job, you will only see what is most likely. Great employees, including sales reps, keep asking why. Why is this still happening? Why didn’t the first solution work? What can I do differently? Apparently, her doctor didn’t think in those terms. He assumed allergies because everyone in Richmond has them in the Spring. When her cough continued through the summer and fall, he didn’t try to figure out why. He wasn’t willing to question his judgment when my Mom and I asked if the cough could be something besides allergies.
Second lesson: be prepared. When I think of my Mom getting in my car that day to head to the doctor, I want to wring the doctor’s neck. She was worried but hoping for the best. The damn doctor could have looked at the report before he walked into the exam room. The nurse knew the appointment’s purpose, and I assume that was because she saw it in their system, the same system the doctor uses. He could have looked, and then maybe he would have led a more thoughtful discussion following his death pronouncement.
Maybe his lack of preparation is why he let the cough go for so long without doing anything. Perhaps he wasn’t looking at his system data and seeing that she had been in and out of his office for months. Maybe he never noticed that he had prescribed antibiotics, steroids, various other allergy medications, and cough medicines, none of which had worked.
We all have tons of information at our disposal. It’s there to make us more informed and help us make better decisions. But those won’t happen if you don’t look at it and think about what it means.
Yesterday, I received a call from an owner who doesn’t usually call outside her weekly coaching session, so I picked up immediately. She related a story about two employees having a verbal confrontation that included unkind words and some off-color language. The owner had overheard the confrontation but hadn’t stepped in because she was busy and hoped the two would work it out themselves.
Another manager was now relaying that one of those involved was saying he couldn’t work in a place where he wasn’t respected. The owner wanted to know what I thought she should do. I asked questions about the situation and concluded that both employees had contributed to the dispute. I asked her what she had done so far, and she relayed that she had done nothing because she had a lot on her plate. I felt the situation was critical because at least one employee talked openly with other managers. I advised her to speak with each separately and ask coaching questions, leading to each person admitting they could have acted differently. Once she got them to that point, she could encourage them to apologize. I prompted the owner to remind each that the company culture is respectful and that swearing and name calling is never acceptable in the workplace. I suggested ending with, “Let’s put this in the rearview mirror and move forward from here.”
About ten minutes after this advice, I got a text sharing that one of the two employees had resigned at the end of the day. I asked if she tried to save the employee;’ her text replied: “There was no saving her.” Then I texted, “How long ago did the altercation happen?” a question I really should have asked earlier. Her text reply: “About three weeks ago.” I thought silently; plenty of time to look for, interview, and get another position.
When Owners Avoid Conflict
In today’s fast-paced business environment, owners have many responsibilities and typically handle additional tasks beyond running their companies. Ordering supplies, estimating projects, selling, and making deliveries are often part of a busy owner’s day. One aspect that is often overlooked or avoided is conflict resolution between employees. Owners tell me stories of interpersonal conflict between employees and between managers and employees, and the stories often end with “I don’t want to be a “babysitter” or “I don’t have time to deal with this.”
When these situations arise, I coach owners and managers on the importance of a company culture where disputes can be resolved amicably, and the downside of letting hurt feelings fester. But far too often, I hear the story after an employee or manager has resigned. When I ask questions about the length of time the conflict existed, the answers tell me that the turnover could have been avoided.
When owners avoid conflicts between themselves and employees, between employees, or between managers and employees, they inadvertently create a culture that fosters disrespect, allows conflicts to escalate, and ultimately impacts employee attrition, productivity, and, very often, customer experience.
The Growing Need for Conflict Resolution
As Millennials and Gen Z employees become an increasingly large portion of the workforce, it becomes critical for owners to instill a culture that emphasizes respect and provides a framework for conflict resolution. These digital natives are far more likely to have a texting battle than a verbal one. They are used to altercations where they can’t look into the other person’s eyes.
Even for your older employees, COVID-19 and its aftermath provided an environment that may have allowed them to avoid interpersonal conflicts more often because of remote work. Now that more coworkers are physically back to work, employees may fail to comprehend the implications of a “real-time” passive-aggressive comment, an eye roll, or a short answer when looking at someone face to face.
Since many younger employees lack experience handling conflicts in a professional setting and many older workers are out of practice, owners and managers need to offer guidance and model behaviors to help the entire workforce understand how to avoid and address workplace conflicts.
Avoiding conflict resolution may seem convenient in the short term, but the long-term consequences can harm any organization. For companies, these consequences include higher turnover, poor employee morale, more product or service issues, and poor customer service.
Speed Matters: Swift Action for Long-Lasting Solutions
Conflicts can easily snowball into more significant issues when left to fester. As an owner, it is crucial to address issues swiftly and effectively. Proactive engagement in resolving disputes at the earliest signs of tension prevents future escalations and creates a positive environment that encourages employees to address problems responsibly.
Leading by Example: Modeling Healthy Conflict Resolution
In addition to modeling good behavior, business owners must teach appropriate conflict resolution strategies to create a healthy work environment. By demonstrating effective techniques and leading the way, owners empower their employees to navigate difficult conversations on their own, fostering a more independent and unified workforce.
When a company invests in building a culture that prioritizes respectful conflict resolution, the benefits are multifold. Employees in such environments are more likely to be productive, remain loyal to the company, and provide exceptional customer experiences.
Key strategies that company owners can employ include:
Keeping an ear to the ground to know when conflicts arise in the workplace.
Providing training workshops and resources on conflict resolution.
Setting clear expectations and policies for resolving workplace disputes.
Encouraging open communication and feedback among employees and management.
Regularly reviewing and updating conflict resolution methods as necessary.
Monitoring resolution efforts and getting involved quickly when disputes occur, and communication breaks down.
Regularly scheduled one-on-one sessions between managers and employees. In addition to regular feedback and career development conversations, these sessions offer employees an opportunity to confidentially discuss conflicts in the workplace before they erupt. Managers can provide coaching to help employees address issues or intercede if the situation warrants it.
Employees dealing with outside stressors may become irritable, easily frustrated, and less patient. This can lead to conflicts with coworkers or even management. As a company owner, it is important to be aware of the impact of external stress on employees and how it may manifest in the workplace, leading to disputes and a negative environment.
Company owners must have a clear process to effectively resolve conflicts arising from external stress. This could include setting up confidential channels for employees to address their concerns and providing access to counseling or support services. Additionally, owners should be open to adjusting workloads or schedules for employees with significant external stress.
When an employee’s external stress manifests as conflict in the workplace, the company owner needs to approach the situation with empathy and understanding. Here’s a process to follow:
1. Arrange a private meeting: Set up a one-on-one discussion in a neutral setting. This gives employees a safe space to express their concerns without feeling judged or embarrassed in front of their coworkers. (Note: Regular one-on-one conversations with employees to discuss departmental improvement plans and career advancement help remove the stigma of being called into the principal’s office when a conflict exists.)
2. Open the conversation tactfully: Begin the discussion by acknowledging the issue without blame. This could start as follows: “I’ve noticed some tension recently, and I wanted to check in with you to see if everything’s okay.”
3. Listen and empathize: Allow the employee to share their perspective. Show empathy and understanding, even if you disagree with everything being said.
4. Address the issue: Once the employee has opened up about their external stress, steer the conversation towards the impact of their behavior on the workplace. Highlight specific instances where their behavior caused conflict.
5. Explore solutions together: Collaboratively discuss ways the employee can manage their stress in a way that doesn’t disrupt the workplace. This could involve strategies like taking regular breaks, adjusting their work schedule, or providing resources for stress management.
6. Follow up: Continually check in with the employee to ensure the agreed-upon solutions have been implemented and assess whether the situation is improving. If necessary, adjust the approach based on progress and feedback.
Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Conflict Resolution
Conflicts in the workplace can be caused by a variety of factors, including external stress. By staying aware of potential sources of stress for employees, having a clear conflict resolution process in place, and acting quickly, owners can effectively manage and minimize conflicts in the workplace. This promotes a positive work environment and improves overall employee satisfaction and retention.
As workforce demographics continue to shift, a focus on building a culture that encourages respect and promotes the resolution of disputes quickly and effectively will pay dividends in the form of building your employer brand, reduced attrition, increased productivity, and improved customer experiences.
Originally published on LinkedIn on September 15, 2020
I come from a long line of baseball fans. We aren’t just your average hot dog-eating, beer-drinking variety of fans either. We care about the history, the strategy, the statistics, and the nuances. We’ve lost two of the great ones in the last couple of weeks with the deaths of Tom Seaver and Lou Brock. That’s probably why my sales coaching mind started to connect prospecting and the baseball concept of productive at-bats.
Prospecting is hard work, and a lot of it doesn’t pay off right away.
· Studies indicate that it takes somewhere between 5 and 21 touches to get a conversation with a prospect.
· I’ve never met a rep who can successfully manage a 21-step cadence so most companies use 8 or 12 steps.
There are still plenty of reps who can’t consistently complete the 8 steps of the cadence. It’s hard for reps to feel productive when they send emails that aren’t returned, leave voice mail messages that are often deleted unheard, or send connection requests on LinkedIn that go unaccepted.
So when faced with a choice of what to do with the available time in a day, many reps choose to do things that feel more productive at the time – clearing out emails, checking in on customers or checking on the status of projects already in production – all feel like a better use of time…at the time.
These seemingly unproductive tasks associated with prospecting are critical to long term success for companies and the reps who sell for them.
The task avoidance practiced by many sales reps coupled with the inherent lack of productivity when reaching out to prospects 8 to 12 times several times a year, has led to the development of much improved lead generation strategies and the creation of a specialized sales position entirely focused on prospecting.
These sales development reps, as they are often called, are not burdened by account management duties, solutions development, demos or even closing. Their entire job is to follow up on inbound leads, execute the outbound prospecting cadence and qualify opportunities for their reps who specialize in converting leads to customers. The industry needs to move faster in this direction.
In the meantime, many companies find themselves in a position where their sales reps must still prospect.
This is where baseball comes back into the picture.
For all you non-baseball fans out there, there is a concept known as a productive at-bat. The batter doesn’t have to get a hit to have a productive at-bat.
The batter can draw a walk and get on base to help their team.
They can ground out but move the runner into scoring position so the next batter can hopefully drive the run in.
They can foul off 15 pitches to tire the pitcher for the next batter or give the rest of the bench a good look at what the pitcher is throwing improving their odds of getting a hit later in the game.
Productive at-bats is the way reps should think about prospecting.
Every time they deliver their insightful message in a voicemail, it can improve their delivery.
Every time they write an email and position their product in a slightly different way, they are fine tuning their message.
Every time they try new words or tell their story differently, they are looking for a better way to resonate with their prospects.
Every time a rep changes the intonation in their voice, slows down or delivers the payoff question in a more compelling way, they are turning themselves into a better prospector and a better sales rep.
Just like the hitter who focuses on a productive at-bat, reps should focus on small improvements to their sales game with each prospect interaction.
If the rep learns something to do or not to do, it’s a productive outing. It’s that work that ultimately gives the rep the power to have great conversations with prospects, schedule first-time meetings, and ultimately close the big deals.
When my kids were young and playing travel baseball and softball, their coaches always focused on having a productive at-bat. It was their ability to learn from those at-bats, to accomplish small goals inside of the big goals that ultimately made them better ball players.
That same focus works when prospecting too.
Instead of focusing on getting a meeting–focus on making small improvements in your messaging, your delivery, your questions and your conversations. Those small changes, happening every day, improve your skills and make you a better sales rep. And back to baseball one more time – you won’t feel like you are striking out all the time. You will feel like you are getting better all the time.
The article originally appeared on LinkedIn, dated November 30, 3021.
I work with a lot of sales professionals, and because of the demographics in the printing industry, most are between the ages of 55 and 65 years old. This is the same age range as most owners I also work with.
The similarities between the two groups often end at age. Most owners are continuous learners. They regularly attend conferences and participate in national and local peer groups. Owners do this for the opportunities that interacting with other business leaders affords them. They also know it’s an excellent way to keep their finger on the pulse of their industry, the markets they serve, and their local business community.
More often than not, this is the opposite of what sales professionals in the printing industry do. Many are not focused on learning, don’t invest their own money in developing skills, and under-utilize the opportunities provided to them by their companies and the industry at large. If I had to name them, it might be ‘Coasters.’ In fact, I’ve had many tell me, “I’m just trying to get to retirement,” and one actually said he wanted to “coast into retirement.”
What coasting looks like to me as a sales trainer, coach, and fractional sales manager boils down to these critical behaviors
Refusal to acknowledge their steady decline in sales has anything to do with how they sell. (It’s the economy, younger buyers who don’t understand print, it’s the fact that no one wants to meet with salespeople today, it’s the company’s pricing, etc.)
Changing what they do daily will take more work than they are willing to do.
They allow themselves to be distracted by daily tasks by design or accident. They are convinced they are too busy monitoring jobs through the shop to ensure they are produced correctly, submitting or doing estimates, writing up jobs, making deliveries, and wandering around on LinkedIn or the internet – to focus on selling more.
The problem with this belief system is that an owner of that business is using his or her hard-earned cash to pay someone who wants to “coast into retirement.”
I have spent years analyzing this problem and think it has two leading causes.
Reps in the printing industry are typically not held accountable for performance. Keypoint Intelligence did a study when I worked there that found that 32% of the printers didn’t hold reps accountable at all. The others responded that they did, but their answer was no more than the ringing of hands and begging their reps to “sell more.” Very few noted that there was a consequence for continued underperformance. The steady decline has been allowed to stand unabated by owners with many other irons in the fire. I still run into companies that don’t set goals for their sales reps, so there isn’t anything to hold them accountable to each year. The expectation is to “sell what you can,” and that is precisely what the owner gets.
Companies don’t have a culture of continuous learning. I have reps who are afraid to write a prospecting email. They haven’t been in school for 30 years, and anything that resembles homework or learning is scary. Others don’t know how to use the software tools on their computers, haven’t invested their time to learn it, and haven’t used any internet content to improve their performance or streamline their work processes. If reps would research B2B buying changes, they would know how their messaging has to change to the attention of prospects. I run across reps who call the same prospect every 90 days or, worse yet, drop in to see those prospects and say something like, “We’d love an opportunity to work with you; please let us know if there is anything I can quote for you.” They haven’t investigated the prospect’s website, used a Google Alert to know that the prospect company has a new Director of Marketing, haven’t tried to connect with stakeholders on LinkedIn, or spent any time figuring out something different to say that might get that prospect’s attention. It’s the time equivalent of throwing good money after bad.
The selling skills of the existing sales reps and managers must improve to make the industry more attractive to younger talent.
If you think you may be in a similar situation, here are some steps to take:
Set goals for your sales rep or reps for 2024. The goals should represent an increase over 2023. Your rep or reps are supposed to sell. Simply maintaining existing accounts is only half of their job. Or, as one of my customers likes to say, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
Establish learning goals or developmental activities that must be achieved to make the total commission rate. If those goals aren’t met, the rep loses commission. There is no accountability without consequences.
Learning or Developmental Goals
One of the reasons sales reps struggle to apply new training is it’s been a long time since they had “homework.” Creating an outline of how they want a sales appointment to go, capturing their ideas for prospect messaging, documenting the questions they want to ask, and sending summaries to clients all feel like homework, and they are out of practice. If reps are constantly working on developmental goals, they will be used to reading, documenting, planning, and executing.
Developmental goals should include a prioritized list of new and updated sales skills. Please work with your reps to identify areas for improvement and have them create a training plan that can include utilizing industry association resources like archived webinars, taking online courses, reading sales books, and learning about the various markets they support. Ensure that their plan includes a way for you to validate that they have achieved their developmental goal and are integrating the knowledge or skill gained into their daily work processes. Validation can include things like making a presentation to you, creating presentations to give to prospects, presenting an overview of a vertical market to your customer-facing team, and assessing their skill improvement during an in-person, virtual, or phone appointment with a customer. Reps should work on one needed improvement at a time and move on to the next developmental goal once completed. There should always be an active learning goal with a target completion date.
The rep creates the plan, and the sales manager or owner oversees their process and coaches them through the execution of their plan. The goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and have a timeline. If the rep’s plan includes a resource the owner has to pay for, it may be worth the investment, but the rep must be accountable for using the resource and completing their plan. The owner should only pay if the rep uses the valuable resource. The rep still has the learning goal but will have to either pay for the resource themselves or find something free to help them accomplish it.
Selling is changing fast. Gartner is projecting that 80% of all interactions between buyers and sellers will be digital by 2025. Many millennials already wish they could buy everything digitally. Is this because they don’t really want to talk to salespeople? No! It’s because they don’t want to talk to sales reps who are unprepared, peddle products, can’t help them move their business forward, and don’t know how to cost-justify what they are recommending. Today’s buyers want more, and if reps can’t give it to them, they prefer to buy it online.
Whatever the current state of your sales rep or team, now is the time to put a system into place that sets goals, holds reps accountable for both sales performance and continuous learning, and creates an environment that other talented people would want to join. If not, you might be coasting into retirement when you should be building your company’s value, so you hit retirement full speed with the money to enjoy it!
This article originally appeared on LinkedIn dated
Every couple of weeks or so, a printing company owner calls me to ask for help with sales. The primary issue is that reps are selling on price. The owner wants me to turn them into trusted advisors who can sell value.
I always get more of these calls during an economic downturn. After 911, during the 2008 recession, and in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, my phone was literally ringing off the hook. I know how to fix the problem, but it takes hard work for the reps and their owner. Owners always start out fully committed; they want to put in the hard work, and they want their reps to buy into a new approach and become better sellers. Owners are paying me and want to get their money’s worth.
The reps rarely start out in the same place. They have seen their sales erode and have chalked it up to:
Customers who only care about price.
Increased competition from other printers who sell on price. (I rarely hear about competitors that are beating them with higher pricing).
Declining print budgets.
A rep rarely acknowledges responsibility for the lack of success. Reps tend to believe their plight is caused by external forces and not their inability to evolve their selling approach in the face of a radically different world.
There is no magic potion that turns a price-based seller into a value-based seller. Both reps and owners are looking for a quick fix and there just isn’t one.
Change is hard. I get it. I have been doing this for a long time. But what I don’t get and will never get is how easily reps and owners throw in the towel. It happened during those times in our history I mentioned earlier, and it’s happening again today. Owners are making excuses for why reps don’t have time to do the things they have learned. Reps see their owner’s waffling as an invitation to return to their traditional ways of selling. Prospecting stops. Being proactive comes to an end and everyone goes back to reacting to customer requests. A lot of hard work by everyone goes out the window.
But here’s the thing, there are print jobs to be won, omnichannel solutions to sell, oodles of display graphics, and signage opportunities, but if your team is selling on price, they are leaving value on the table. And you’ll be leaving it on the table tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.
Selling value means reps have to do research. They need to understand the challenges their customers face and the opportunities available to them. They need to understand business – how their customers make money, where they can improve employee productivity and how they increase profitability. Reps have to engage the people who control the objective, not just the ones who buy the print. They have to ask great questions and have meaningful conversations and they need to understand how to create value for the customer and demonstrate an improved ROI.
Reps who can sell value, make themselves indispensable because of their perspective, ideas and insight, and not because they know how to produce a print job inexpensively. They invest time in educating themselves and use a sound process that helps them identify opportunities, qualify them and then create value that makes them and their companies worth a higher price.
This cycle of starting to evolve and then falling back has hurt many printing companies and it hurts the industry. It’s one of the reasons the printing industry isn’t attractive to great sales talent. Great salespeople don’t want to sell on price, they want to sell something valuable. Selling value is how great sales professionals grow their sales and their incomes.
There’s a great (and short) book by Seth Godin called The Dip. I read it years ago and the main point is that mastery of anything is hard. Anyone trying to master something like a new sales process starts out full of excitement and adrenaline, but that starts to wane after that initial phase. You really have to stick with it through the long slog from initial excitement to mastery. But if you push through, you create a DIP that is bigger and wider and harder to get through for the competitors who follow.
Learning to sell value is a skill to be mastered. You may be in the valley of the DIP and close to the other side: mastery. Now is not the time to throw in the towel.
