** THIS WEEK **

Hear Danny on Voice America Business RADIO

Listen to Danny speak on the topic of "Asking Questions"

There has been many a sales meeting where the sales team has been asked to "find a way to make just a few more calls." Sometimes management's desire is for a lot more activity and that sounds like "clear your calendar for next Tuesday's phone blitz" or "be ready next Wednesday and Thursday for lots of follow-up calls to the new (rushed) marketing drop."

Although we can point to some results from those extra efforts, we have to wonder why there is a need for drastic changes in behavior. Salespeople have told me there are times it feels like they are the "galley slaves," rowing the big boat (sales ship) in time to the drum beat. When, for some reason, the drum beat picks up they can hear the crack of the whip (on someone else) and they have no clue as to where they are really headed. Extreme? They didn't think so. It begs two questions for all sales professionals and management: What went wrong to cause the need to pick up the pace? And, are we destined to end up being frantic again?

When David Sandler first got into sales, he was conflicted about something. The concept that, "Sales is just a numbers game; if you want to make more, do more," made sense. However, he couldn't reconcile that with the old rule of, "Work smart, not hard." This was especially troubling to him when he observed highly successful sales professionals who didn't appear to be working as frantically as some of their peers.

Upon looking closer at these high performers, David noticed they did their sales plans a little differently. He observed that besides setting and tracking dollar goals, the high performers had additional notes to support where they believed those revenues would come from. They had notes about key accounts, their potential for growth by product line/services, estimates of when those revenues would appear and why they were making those predictions. In addition, they had specific notes on what behaviors were needed to secure the business, like frequency of contact, getting to another decision maker, or timing of demonstrations. David adopted these tools in his own sales planning and later added structure to the process so he could help others have the same success. David called this creating a sales "cookbook."

By planning what we have to do and adding tracking mechanisms, sales professionals have a tool where, when revenues fall short, we can begin an objective self analysis by comparing our actual activities to the plan. Now, just because someone didn't follow the plan, doesn't automatically mean the sales manager should break out the whip. Looking at the plan is where we begin the diagnostic process.

Lack of behavior is driven by several factors, but the main one is Attitude. Did the salesperson believe the plan was achievable or was he or she just acquiescing to the manager's order? Without some level of buy-in/input, it is unlikely the plan will be followed. And, what about the salesperson's confidence in his or her abilities? If the plan calls for several new prospecting behaviors and the salesperson has been involved exclusively in account relationship selling, the sales manager should plan some training or field work to assure the salesperson will be effective in a new sales role.

What about when the salesperson performs the activity but meets with little success? Did the manager notice early on and provide assistance to see what help was needed? Was the manager involved in the new behavior plan?

With a little more effort up front to describe the specific activities that make up the sales plan, combined with more frequent management review of actual behaviors, the sales ship can often reach and exceed its goals without re sorting to a last minute beating of the drum.

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