BUSINESS Anatomy of a Successful Salesperson Don’t miss the investor relations section of larger public companies’ websites. Just about all company websites contain useful information for a salesperson. This can include bios of company leadership, as well as contact information. It will also help to familiarize yourself with that company, should you ever meet. Your research will be noticed and will definitely separate you from most of your competition. Efficient Route Planning Since a salesperson’s travel expenses can be so high, it’s im- perative to plan, be well organized and practice efficient time management. In addition to their other more obvious benefits, modern sales management or CRM applications (such as ACT, Goldmine or Salesforce) also include mapping features. When you set up a lead, prospect or customer record in those systems (all these programs are really just user-friendly databases), the program provides a mapped location. This feature can be enormously helpful when planning your route for sales calls. If you don’t have access to such soſtware, you can use online programs such as MapQuest or Google Maps to enter your locations and then arrange them in an efficient geographical order. Of course, depending upon your local traffic patterns, it may be more productive to drive to your furthest point early enough to beat rush-hour traffic and then work your way back. Many times, the best way is to create a loop, starting and end- ing at your home base. Today’s GPS devices are incredibly useful, but I promise that you will have a very bad day when (not if) your GPS stops working if you don’t have your customer or prospect informa- tion backed up. A variety of smartphone mapping and naviga- tion programs such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze and others can also help you find locations and assemble efficient routes for sales calls. Try to plan out your preferred route and then make appoint- ments accordingly. Otherwise, people will have you zigging and zagging all over the place, burning gas and losing valu- able time. Although this approach won’t always work out, it’s oſten better to tell people that you will be in their area on xxx day. Would they be available at around xx o’clock? Nail down your most important call targets first, and then — once you have appointments confirmed — build the rest of your route around these primary stops. Unfortunately, in the real world, people will cancel appoint- ments last minute, forget or not even tell you they can’t see you until you arrive. It’s a good idea to identify a few stops along your planned route so you can fill in, even if you don’t have an appointment. These are examples of things that an experienced, 18 KEYNOTES JANUARY 2021 successful sales professional should already know, whereas a rookie will waste time and money, learning at your expense. Train your salesperson on your product and/or service but let someone else pay for their training and experience as a profes- sional salesperson. Highly successful salespeople are usually well organized and engage in planning their week in advance, although there are many ways to do this. Time Management Organizing your time starts with getting on the road — being aware of weather and traffic delays and ensuring you arrive a bit early for your appointment. Any down time from early ar- rivals or lunch hour(s) can be used for administrative purposes, increasing product or service knowledge or reviewing notes for an upcoming appointment. Emails can be sent in between stops, particularly at lunch while no one is in the customer’s office. Follow-up calls can be made between stops, and you should strive to have some flexibility so you can catch up in returning customers’ troubleshooting calls. You won’t always hit all the planned stops listed in your ini- tial schedule, but you can and should roll over any misses to the next trip in that area. Late aſternoons are a great time to send emails, since most are in their office, ready to leave for the day. People tend to be more relaxed heading into the weekend. Fridays are great for actually speaking with someone versus Monday mornings’ obvious inherent timing issues. Plugging in administrative or clerical time (reports, call notes, trying to recall conversations, etc.) during the workday can save you from extra hours of paperwork at home. It’s a great feeling, just knowing that you only have a few residual notes to catch up on from your day, rather than starting from the beginning. This approach also provides an opportunity to review notes for the next day. Your stops and routes should have already been planned during the prior week, although some adjustments may be required. Remember, this should only be a cursory review of tomorrow’s schedule. If calling on Class A office buildings, be aware that most are managed by property management companies and you are most likely better off to target them as a discreet market seg- ment. However, in that same building, there may be a company that handles other potential opportunities (such as off-campus housing), so this becomes part of your lead-generation and market-targeting planning. Cold Calling Many otherwise good salespeople are simply not comfortable — and therefore not really good at — cold calling. Keep this WWW.ALOA.ORG
