A reader writes:
I am having a problem at my company. I’m desperately trying to be an outside salesperson (primary role), inside sales, lead generator and advertising genius simultaneously. I’m also teaching myself how to use SalesForce and InsideView. My management knows they need to be patient, but “how much longer” is the unspoken message. Why do these tech companies, run by engineers, fail to recognize the need for sales professionals to be equally well equipped to do THEIR jobs? This is the 3rd company I’ve been with that’s run this way.
The problem here is that your managers — bless their little engineer hearts — think they’ve provided you with the tools you need. After all, didn’t they give you access to some cool software? As for the “selling” part your job: why, that’s all stuff that they don’t really understand. The way they see it, you should simply fire up the software, and (by golly!) just start selling.
To fix this problem, answer “how much longer?” in terms they will understand and embrace. To do this, you must think and talk a little more like an engineer. Here’s a simple eight step plan…
- STEP #1: Forget about advertising for now. You wouldn’t be able to handle any new leads anyway, so that would just be wasted money. Even if it would generate new leads, which it probably wouldn’t anyway.
- STEP #2: If you’ve got leads in your pipeline, schedule 2 hours each day nurturing them as well as you can. If you can close a deal or two, so much the better. If don’t have any leads, skip this step.
- STEP #3: Schedule 12 hours over two days to learn Salesforce.com. This is not a complicated program to learn; if you need help, there are plenty of training courses available.
- STEP #4: Schedule 18 hours over three days to learn InsideView. This is probably overkill, but you need to understand how it works with Salesforce.com.
- STEP #5: Create a clear schedule, showing how you intend to maintain sales activity during the next week, while still learning the software. Get your boss’s buy-in to leave you alone for that week.
- STEP #6: Once you’ve completed that week, start using InsideView to generate new leads. As leads enter the pipeline start tracking them with SalesForce.com.
- STEP #7: Shift your focus over to the human aspects of selling. Use Salesforce.com to track your progress. Make nice charts for your bosses. They’ll be happy.
- STEP #8: If you discover that a lack of advertising is hampering your ability to develop opportunities or close business, then focus on it for a couple of hours each week. Otherwise continue to ignore it.
The main idea is to get methodical, learn the tools, and gradually go into “production mode.” Most engineers understand this way of thinking because that’s how they approach engineering projects. Unfortunately, you sometimes have to lead them through the nose to understand that business projects must be approached the same way.
Hope that helps!
