Chapter 2 - Everybody In Your Company Is Responsible For Selling, Not Just Your Direct Sales Team

A while ago I gave a speech at a hotel in Leicester to 30 members of a trade association. The room was full of managing directors, sales directors and business owners. These executives represented a range of companies from, those with just 20 employees, all the way through to multinationals with tens of thousands of people.

Before I started my speech, I asked each executive what their number one business challenge was, and without exception, all said ‘growth’.

Specifically, their challenge was the ongoing growth in revenue and profits of the company.

Also speaking that day was a friend of mine, Steve.

Steve is a professional sales trainer and an expert in training direct salesforces. Steve spoke about understanding customer buying patterns, closing techniques and traditional sales strategies. His speech was excellent and I couldn’t disagree with a word he said. He is clearly a master at teaching direct salesforces how to sell.

The sales executives and managing directors in the room loved Steve’s speech; it was like putting a square peg in a square hole for them.

That day, both Steve and I talked about how to increase the revenues of a company. However, where Steve believes that selling is done by the direct sales team, my belief is that selling is done by every member of staff in the company, and not just the direct sales team.

You can never escape the fact that every member of your workforce is responsible – both directly and indirectly – for the ongoing growth of your company.

I said in Chapter 1 that the greatest salespeople in the world are your existing customers and their ability to recommend you. Customers will only recommend you if they believe in you, and if they have had an exceptional and extraordinary experience when dealing with your company. They need to feel valued as a customer, and their expectations must be matched or exceeded.

Customers only recommend you if they are happy with the service or products you provide, not because of what a direct salesperson said to them.

This means every member of staff in your organisation, from the lowest level administrator or maintenance employee, to the highest-level senior director, plays their part in creating the experience which shapes your customers’ perception of you. That is what determines whether they want to recommend you, or repeat buy from you.

If your company is filled with people like the Barman, who clearly fail to meet the needs and wants of their customers, and send customers away disappointed, frustrated, or worse still– hungry or unfulfilled, then as an organisation you have very little chance of breaking through to new levels of sales revenue. Not, even with all the advance sales techniques that Steve, as a master sales trainer would be able to teach you.

If, as a company, you are failing to deliver for your customers at the wider level, then all the sales training in the world for your direct sales team will never out perform the negative reviews that will be spread far and wide about you in the marketplace.

If however, your company is filled with people like Paolo the Barber, who clearly love their work, put the needs of your customers first, understand that their actions and decisions have future revenue consequences, then your reputation as an organization will literally precede you. The need to have sophisticated, highly-paid persuasive sales staff will be greatly diminished as the recommendations your prospective customers will receive from your existing customers will already have done the majority of hard selling for you, in the softest possible way.

For the hard-nosed executives of the trade association who listened to my and Steve’s speeches, my message seemed a little more difficult to swallow. Like many business leaders, I’m sure they strongly believed the growth of their company was in the hands of their salespeople, and of course, to some degree it is.

But I’m sure if they asked themselves, truthfully, when they book a holiday or restaurant, or go to buy a car, who is really doing the selling for them? Is it the persuasive salesperson, or is it their own opinions which have been formed by recommendations from their friends, family or business colleagues?

I’m sure the same is true for you.

You would not go to a restaurant if you had heard bad things about it, and similarly, you would not book into a hotel or holiday resort if you had heard that the staff do not care, are not engaged or connected, and do not put the needs of their paying customers first.

You would clearly give that hotel or restaurant a miss, regardless of what the most persuasive salesperson said to you, simply because the negative recommendations received by your friends and family come without prejudice, and are impartial and independent.

For you to turn your workforce into your salesforce, you must fill your company with people like Paolo the Barber – with employees who understand that their actions have consequences, that a customer’s decision to buy, repeat buy or recommend you comes solely as a result of dealing with your company and dealing with your front-line staff.