❓❓❓Tired of your salesperson asking you questions and never giving you solutions?
Here are 3 simple techniques to overcome time-wasting salespeople and transform them into a professional and independent salesperson!
Imagine this, you’re at work, getting into the flow, you’re busy managing and executing your tasks for the day, and then suddenly, your salesperson interrupts you and asks you “Boss, how do I solve this problem?”.
❌ Your flow is immediately broken, and let’s say you take 10 minutes to answer your salesperson, but even worse it takes you another 23 minutes to get back into the flow! Research from the University of California Irvine has found that it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to be exact to get into the flow!
Now that is only one interruption from a single salesperson, multiply it by the number of questions that comes up in a day, and multiply it again by the number of salespersons that you have!
How much of your time and productivity is wasted?
How much of the salesperson’s time and revenue that they could be generating is wasted just by asking questions rather than thinking for themselves as a professional salesperson should?
🕑+💰 It all adds up to you significantly wasting your time and revenue that you and your organization could be earning!
✉️ As a sales trainer, consultant, and coach I realize that there are a lot of salespeople who only act as “messengers”. What do I mean by that?
They go to the customer
They come back to you
They communicate the customer’s question to you
You give them the answer
They go back to the customer
They parrot back YOUR answer to the customer
🔁Rinse and repeat
An example of a conversation:
“Oh, my customer wants this.”
“So, can I give the customer this?”
I’m sure you’re tired of your salesperson just being messengers, correct?
So here are the 3 techniques to overcome this problem.
1. 🧠 STOP thinking for the salesperson! MAKE them think instead.
How do we do it?
When a salesperson comes and says:
“Boss, I have a customer. They don’t reply to my messages, what do I do?”
He wants you to do the thinking as his sales manager and sales director.
So, how do you respond to this particular question?
You ask the salesperson:
“What have you done so far, that caused the customer not to reply to you?”
“What did you say in the text message?”
“How did you call the customer?”
“What is your script?”
By asking them a question, you make them think so that you don’t need to think.
2. ✌️ The 2 solution Rule
Set a rule with your sales team that whenever they come to you with a problem, they must already have a minimum of 2 different sets of solutions to that problem.
So, using the same example as before
“Boss, I’ve texted my customer and the customer doesn’t reply.”
You ask the salesperson:
“What are your 2 solutions right now? “
Make them think by asking them this question.
So that they will be able to come up with their own solutions first.
They may not provide the right solution, but at least it gets them started to think for themselves.
After they propose the solution to you, ask them:
“Why did you pick this solution?”
“How do you come up with this solution?”
When you ask this question, the salesperson now must justify their response to you, which enables them to once again think, and analyze their own decision.
3. 💪 Encouragement
If the salesperson says:
“Boss, my customer doesn’t reply to me, what do I do?”
Some people’s immediate reaction would be to say:
“Hey, you should know what to do.”
“I’ve told you a million times.”
What happens then?
The salesperson will become very demoralized, and will not think for themselves anymore.
So, what you actually need to do is to encourage them.
Let’s say the salesperson is John, this is how you could reply to him:
“Hey, John, come up with solutions.”
“I’m sure we can work this out.”
“We’re going to combine resources and we can find a good answer together.”
Encourage them to come up with solutions so that their brain can work more effectively rather than shooting down their ideas and demoralizing them.
TLDR: So, if you ask a lot of questions, set the 2 solutions rule, and constantly give encouragement, I’m sure your salesperson will stop from being just a messenger and an order taker, and start becoming a professional salesperson that can think of solutions, to solve any sales problems that they face on a day to day basis.
🧠 Ladies and gentlemen, remember, MAKE THEM THINK.
If you’ve learned something useful in this post like and share it so that we know it’s helpful for you, and share with us in the comments section below your thoughts on what you would do to start making your salespeople think for themselves.
