Magnus Marketing Blog

Sometimes salespeople fail or in the eyes of their superiors they fail and many times the reasons do not lie with the salesperson. I got to thinking about this because of a client I work with, who had salespeople fail.

1. As a salesperson, you go sell. Sure, I can go sell, but not without the support of the organization. Whether I am an employee, 1099, consultant or whatever, a sales or marketing person cannot be thrown out there and told - "go sell". It is critical that the superior be involved and work with the salesperson to ensure success. Every Monday, I talk with Paul Avery at AlphaPoint - with his updates, we - WE together - are able to discuss the market, the technology, and events. Together, we are successful. Let's not talk about the VP of Sales who blew me off for 8 weeks, ignoring my calls, and praising the other rep every chance he could - wow, talk about DEMOTIVATING. I still got Executive level meetings, in spite of that.

2. Lousy tools. I mentioned that I was subjected to Microsoft CRM, my hope is, I never use that again. It was completely unsuited for prospecting, I had to integrate it with Outlook and it froze my computer. It really killed my productivity. Another client has one of the worst webmail solutions, I don't even know if it sends the emails out. If you want sales to be successful, then you need to provide the right tools for your salesteam to use to be efficient and effective in their roles.

3. Awful support. Let's bypass crappy marketing collateral that doesn't support the value proposition or sales messaging and talk about stuff like providing crappy target lists, no leads, and no materials to help move a sale forward.

4. You Again? You call your client to discuss a prospect call and he says, in effect, "you again?" or you send an email copying the client on an upcoming meeting and receive an email, "what am I supposed to do with this", you email a client about a thought on an opportunity and get back, "nah, too busy to deal with this"....if I had an employer that acted like that, I'd be looking for a new job. It is HARD enough to GET the meetings and demos, especially in THIS environment. Why not TRY to be a little more receptive and share some motivating joy - "wow, looks like you got a callback from one of our key target accounts, what do you need to move it forward", "Great job, you just started calling and already got a meeting! Your reputation stands up again!", "what have you got for me this time? Another opportunity".

5. More, not enough. Hey, man, you want more leads or more business - get on the damn phone yourself and make some calls. I highly doubt you will be able to get anything better than what I have. Get on the phone and cold call these people and you tell me how you much new business you get. If you can do better than me, I acquiese and will find a new line of work tomorrow.

This is a VERY challenging environment, with small companies hit just as hard as large ones. This is no time to add more demotivation and more obstacles to the salesperson's already tough job. The failure is you - for not doing YOUR job and working toward success.

So, following my post before regarding the end of my longest client relationship...I thought I would write some pointers on how to end business relationships. Much has been written about ending client relationships, so let's focus on the obverse.

Particularly when the situation is NOT due to performance, such as the case, it is important to end a relationship with some mutual benefit. Also, be sure to review the contracts in place to ensure that termination clauses are adhered to. Show some compassion, if you are a key client - work with the person to make sure that everything is in order and taken care of, provide feedback to help the vendor or company to do a better job in the future.

At the time I engaged with JobMachine, I had two clients and losing one would be particularly impactful - so I ensured that a two week notice clause was included to plan financially and/or for biz dev. I did not have a strong relationship with the VP of Sales, sure it is easy for him to terminate me - no relationship. However, I would have taken the news much better had it come from Shally. He easily could have called me up before he went on vacation or after he came back and told me what was going on, why, and would support me for future endeavors with him or other companies. That is much more appropriate then, "You are a vendor and cash is tight and I don't see why you need two days so let's end it today" - that was the gist, and of course, that it isn't a performance issue which was appreciated.

I have a current client who I think is incredibly smart and very astute business-wise. He and I worked on a 3 month go-to-market last year which was not successful. I dealt with someone else in his organization, yet we had a meeting where I summarized the results and observations. He ended the initiative and stopped the engagement. In April of this year, he contacted me with another engagement - I have been working with them since and the initiative this time is 10X more successful - in fact, I feel really great because I generated enough potential business to cover his costs on the first engagement AND this one. Hopefully, he make his expenditure on me back and profit. That is how you end a relationship.

The only time I really never work with anyone again is if they do not pay me. I have had clients who ended relationships and thought they were also entitled to stiff me on the payment. Then, we end up in court and we are done forever - good riddance.

There are reasons why business relationships end, usually it IS for the better for both parties. How they end is more important than the fact that they ended. Why they end also is important for growth and learning, particularly if it is performance. The world is not really that large, relationships transcend those between the company and the vendor involved. Many resources like myself are not commodities - people like me aren't really a dime a dozen and should never be taken for granted.