remember when
As time goes. I remember the mid-1970s when professional selling was easy and a lot of fun. We were Lone Wolves then. We controlled everything, we were professionals, we had a piece of land. All we had to do to maintain ownership was generate sales. We had our tools, a company car, trunk files, brochures, samples, and a calendar/card file. Over time, some of us even got car phones. Sure, we did call reports and had sales meetings, but make no mistake, we were professionals. We owned that piece of land and most of the clients that were on it. If we decided to go to greener pastures, most of our customers went with us. We had respect. It was all about relationships and I even remember my first sales training seminar, “Need Fulfillment Selling.” I was a rookie and having the time of my life. In fact, being a newbie was part of my strategy (even though I didn’t know I had a strategy at the time) to develop relationships, especially with new accounts,
“Mr. Customer, I’m a bit new at this. I’m learning a lot. Can you help me understand a few things about your business?”
I called myself a newbie long after my fifth anniversary as a salesperson. Most of the purchasing agents felt sorry for me. They wanted to help. They wanted to teach. And, what better way to start a relationship than to be the recipient of tips and advice.
words of wisdom
Everyone needs a mentor to be really good at sales. Sure, I treated my clients and potential clients as mentors. It made them feel good and helped me build that relationship that was key to success in the ’70s and ’80s. But we all have one or two special people in our lives who make the difference in our success as sales reps: a former boss, colleague, teacher, someone who turns on the light in our head and keeps it on.
Those of us who have been successful in sales could probably write a book on the lessons learned from our mentors. But, in general, there are some comments that stay with us for life. When it comes to relationship selling, two have stayed with me over the last 30 years,
“Build a relationship with your customer, Rick. Earn his trust, earn his respect, and he’ll tell you how to do business with him.”
That’s what relationship selling is all about. It worked. Cocktail lunches, ball games, golf, fishing trips and visits to a hunting lodge were part of our repertoire. These were tools of the trade, relationship builders.
Knowing your customer as a person, that’s what it was all about. He became your friend. To do that, you couldn’t spend most of your time talking about features and benefits or doing little product demos. No, you asked questions, questions about them, and then you shut up and listened. Another piece of advice from my mentor that has stuck with me over the years emphasized that same thought:
“If you spend an hour with a customer and you talk 45 minutes giving a presentation about features and benefits, your company and God knows what else, and the customer only talks 15 minutes, you’re a dead man. If you walk out of there, your client will think you’re a jerk, no matter how good your pitch was. But listen to me, son, if you spend an hour with that customer, ask him some questions and let him talk for 45 minutes about himself, the sale is 75% done. You’ll walk away and the customer will think you’re the best thing since peanut butter. You made a great sales call. How can he not think that when he spent 45 minutes telling you all about himself? I guarantee you. Only you are in control.
Change is the only guarantee in life
Things have changed in the last 20-30 years. We have gone through an evolutionary process in the world of professional sales. We can no longer be Lone Wolves. We cannot control every piece of data, every contact with our client or be in control of the total relationship with the client. To be successful and grow as a sales professional today we cannot afford to “own” the account. Buyers are more sophisticated today. Selling is more complex. It is not enough to have knowledge of the product. We must have industry knowledge, market knowledge, and most importantly, we must understand our customers’ customers. To excel in sales today, we have to educate our customers and help them make money. We must become total solution providers.
If we are going to grow as professionals and transition from Lone Wolf to Lead Wolf, then we must be humble. We must be willing to relinquish total control, share credit, and develop teamwork within our sales organization. We can learn from each other.
I learned a lesson in humility a long time ago from my 17-year-old son. I started my own steel distribution and grew it to $25 million in sales in ten years. I had just sold the business, I had a lot of change in my pocket, and I was feeling pretty smug. I thought I could give my son a “life lesson”. So I said, “Rhett, your dad is a self-made man.” I boldly made this statement because I expected him to question it. I wanted to tell you about the long hours, hard work, sacrifice and dedication it takes to be successful at anything. But, he didn’t say a word. He just looked at me with that weird blank stare that only teenagers master. I waited and waited for what seemed like forever and finally he said, “You know what, dad? That’s what I like about you. You take responsibility for all your mistakes.”
From this, I reminded myself that humility is of paramount importance to sales reps—it’s a trait of leadership and salesmanship that we all need.
Become a lead wolf
The expectations set by our clients and our employers today are enormous. We thought we were professionals in the old days, and we were, by the standards of yesteryear. But, today the bar has been raised. We have huge shoes to fill. We will never live up to the hype if we can’t get rid of the “lone wolf” mentality and use all the assets available to us. We must replace the old concept of control with the concept of team selling and become Lead Wolfs. In this role, we direct the efforts of all the assets of the company to meet the sales objectives and the expectations that our clients have of us today as sales professionals.
The concept of pioneering a territory and then serving customers like an annuity is dead. Customers are no longer willing to pay for it. The “Lead Wolf” who understands today’s evolutionary process builds business-to-business relationships so that other team members can serve. He becomes the quarterback calling the plays. He manages the relationship and not the transaction activity. His main objective remains the same, first call, last look, but his methodology has changed. Instead of managing transactions, he spends time developing new customers and increasing the penetration of existing customers.
Aside from humility, another important characteristic we need as professional sales reps to make the transition from Lone Wolf to Lead Wolf is commitment. We have to be committed to our clients, our industry, our clients’ industry and be a problem solver and profit maker for our clients. Sometimes we may have to teach our clients how to make money. Certainly, we all need to educate them on the difference between price vs. cost. We need to commit to this process of evolutionary change and become Lead Wolves.
Commitment is also something I learned from one of my sons. My daughter really put it into perspective for me when she was a teenager. It was one day that she was watching a particularly fascinating NFL football game. The Cleveland Browns were playing the Cincinnati Bengals. It was the “Battle of Ohio”. The score was tied with four minutes to go. My eyes were glued to the television when my 15-year-old daughter ran into the room yelling:
“Dad, dad, I need you to lend me $100 and take me to the mall. RIGHT NOW!”
I was surprised to be snapped out of my trance, but my eyes never left the television. “Go away,” I yelled, gesturing with my hand, “I’m watching football.”
“But Dad,” she complained, “I have to go to the mall to buy a ring.”
“You’re 15 years old,” I replied with disgust. “You don’t need a hundred dollar ring. I want to see the end of this game!”
“But Dad, it’s called a purity ring. I want to give it to my husband the day we get married to show him how committed I was to saving myself for him alone.”
“What what?”
I jumped off the couch, knocked my soda off the table and yelled, “Get my car keys, we’re going to the mall.”
That made the concept of engagement very clear in my mind, and engagement is absolutely essential to evolving through the Lead Wolf process.
People still do business with people
Don’t think for a minute that I’m suggesting that personal relationships with your customers are no longer important; that is not the case at all. We still need to commit to building relationships. Golf is still fine, going to ball games, fishing and hunting is still fine! In fact, relationships with our clients are even more important today because we need multiple relationships within our clients’ business that are developed with multiple layers of people within our business. What is the difference today? The relationship is just the initial bet to play in the world of professional sales. Once we have established those relationships, we must function as the lead wolf and manage those relationships to deliver maximum value to our customers.
Perceived value drives expectations. Performance value drives satisfaction.
The more we raise our customers’ perceived value by managing these relationships, the more we raise their expectations. If we raise the bar high enough by being a total solution provider, we can create a competitive advantage.
Caveat!
Be careful not to raise your perceived value so high that our performance values cannot support those expectations. That’s called shooting yourself in the foot.
The questions I pose to professional sales reps today are simple.
o Are you still functioning as a lone wolf?
o Do you protect your territory, customer relationships, experience and knowledge?
o Or have you transitioned to Lead Wolf?
o Do you recognize that it will take your entire company and all of your resources to excel and grow in this century?
o Do you know the industry of your customers? Do you know the top five customers of your customers?
o Are you willing to transfer intellectual capital by mentoring your peers and inside sales reps?
o Have you humbled yourself enough to be willing to share the credit?
o Are you committed to becoming a total solution provider?
o Are you qualified to be the Lead Wolf, directing the activities and resources necessary to maximize the potential of your territory?
“It is not the strongest species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent. It is not the strongest or the most intelligent; it is the ones that are most responsive to change that survive.” -Darwin
Although vitally important, making the transition from Lone Wolf to Lead Wolf is not easy. In addition to changing your own mindset, your entire sales organization, as well as quite a few people in other areas of your company, must adapt to new realities.
