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Research conducted by Harvard University, The Gallup Organization, and the HR Chally Group during the 1990s and early 2,000s revealed that 4% percent of the country's salespeople sell 94% of the goods and services.
This blog is dedicated to those hapless individuals out there who couldn’t do anything else and became salesmen. They make the 4% possible.
It’s the week before Christmas so naturally 96% of the nation’s sales people have no plan for the week. At 10:00 this morning a sales rep entered our office on a cold call (hugely good use of her time). After providing her name and the name of her company she asked which service we used for water and coffee. When she was told that we used her company, she explained that they had sent her out to see if we were happy. Oh really?
If she has been provided with records to increase her sales productivity, she thinks it’s a better use of her time to interrupt her prospects just to find out if she can sell to them. If her company doesn’t provide these types of records to improve the productivity of their sales reps ...they are just…well, idiots.
Luckily I just overheard this conversation safely tucked a way in my office doing very important CEO things. It turns out though that this sales rep, working for another company at the time, once tried to sell us a color printer. That story is also a good one and deserves its own post. In the meantime, let’s weigh in on this type of old fashion cold calling. Are there any situations where it makes sense today?
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I'd take a sales rep that makes the effort.
But I STRONGLY agree that she should have done her research before interrupting you. And her company should have provided her with that research (and training too).
On a separate note... THANK YOU for starting this blog. I think this will be fun and is the type of blog thinking that is absent these days. Everyone wants to talk about social media, email best practices, etc. What ever happened to the simple cold call? There's nothing wrong with good old fashioned selling. Why wait for people to search for you? Go out and get the business!!
Thanks Kate!
Greg Warner
CEO
MarketSmart
www.imarketsmart.com