Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/825042
26 FEDA News & Views W henever I ask experienced sales professionals this question, they always affirm how customer-focused they already are and how they really do not need any additional help or training in this area. What about you? Are you really customer-focused in your day-to-day selling efforts? Answer the four questions below to evaluate how well you measure up. Mastering all four can help increase your cus- tomer's perceptions of your professionalism and interest in their business. Question No. 1 How much research do you complete before a sales call? Our first question focuses on your pre-call research and preparation. How much research do you complete before a sales call? Have you googled your upcoming customer or prospect on the Internet to learn more about what they do? Can you learn anything in advance of your call about their products, coverage area, senior management team or other company divisions? Even though Google and the Internet have made pre-call research so much easier and faster, most reps still do not complete any pre-call research before visiting a customer or prospect. Imagine how much more customer-focused you would appear to an existing customer if you knew, and could ref- erence on your call, their company's latest stock price, any recent announcements, or their latest product introductions. We're not talking about hours of research time before each call. It might only take five or 10 minutes to do some quick research before a call to ensure you have some current topics to discuss, or can validate your initial understanding of your customer's company and market. What can you do to start conducting at least a few minutes of online research before your next sales calls? Question No. 2 What percent of your sales calls do you spend talking? Our second question to measure your true customer focus centers on how much talking versus listening you do on a sales call. What percentage of a sales call are you talking? As a sales consultant, I've had the honor of riding along on hun- dreds of sales calls and observing sales professionals in front of their customers. For years, I took a stopwatch with me for these ride-along days. I would never tell the sales rep what I was doing until the end of the day. Since I was only observ- ing their call, I really did not have anything to say and could pay attention to the back and forth between them and their customer or prospect. Noticing what time it was when we began a call, I would turn the stopwatch on every time the customer started talking and then turn it off whenever their customer stopped. Since I kept the watch in my pocket the entire time, nobody ever realized what I was doing. After the call, I would then ask the rep for the percentage of time they thought they had actually talked during the sales call. The average rep usually thought their call had been a 50-50 balance of talking and listening. Of the hundreds of sales calls I have timed, the average experienced sales pro spent 80 to 90 percent of their time talking on their call—80 to 90 percent! Their sales calls were interactive; it's just that the sales reps did almost all the talking! How long does it take a customer to ask this question, "Why are you so expensive?" What did that take, two or three seconds? But how long does it take you to respond with your answer? Four or five minutes? Do you want to identify the percentage of time you spend talking to your customers? Consider asking your manager or a sales peer to ride with you for a day so they can time your sales calls. Be sure and bring a stopwatch that does not beep or click every time you turn it on or off. Another simpler alternative is to just record some of your telephone sales calls. This does not have to be complicated; you can even use a dictation machine or tape recorder. It's not even necessary to record both sides of your conversa- tion. Instead, just review your recorded call, timing yourself to determine the talking-versus-listening ratio. ARE YOUR SELLING ACTIONS TRULY CUSTOMER-FOCUSED? Four Questions to Test Your Resolve & Improve Your Sales Success By Jim Pancero jim@pancero.com