Magnus Marketing Blog

Sales training, when it comes to general process or construct stuff can be helpful. However when it gets more specific or is vendor sponsored, then sales training can become quite questionable. Case in point:

Recently, one of my clients enabled me to join a sales training session for a service that they newly launched. The service is rather new to the SMB market and requires a bit of strategic positioning, business orientation, and analysis in order to sell it. My client, the Owner/President, of the business informed me that the way to get the sales process going is to talk only with the CFO. He presented a script which talked only about a cost saving and implored the target (the CFO) to set up a meeting and some general collateral. He then let me loose. Well, I talked to a fair number of C-level executives, CFO and COO, even a CEO here and there and ALL of them directed me to the IT Director stating that this person would know the information and decide whether the service would fit. In fact, in speaking with IT Directors - it appeared as though they were the evaluators and final decision-makers for the service and could talk quite intelligently - as other positions could about infrastructure related issues. I also scrapped the script, favoring a more descriptive service/benefit pitch to help people understand how the service would work.

So, I attended the training session - it was the last of a series. The sales trainer, a semi-aggressive type with a bubbly personality quickly went through a bunch of slides. She mandated that the people on the call (many non-sales types) MUST get a meeting with the CFO, be a trusted advisor, talk about value, and get the appointment at all costs. Out of one side of her mouth - the CFO doesn't understand the service, it is new - you need to educate him about the service and talk costs, out of the other - get the appointment quickly. (Not gonna happen). You are a trusted advisor, she said, and not selling anything - you just want an assessment. And how many prospects are dumb enough to believe that an assessment isn't tied to "selling anything" - so you are just taking time up to waste time and talk to them??? Use the script we provided - repeat the same thing everyone else is saying with the same cost/benefit statement without explaining what you are trying to accomplish so the "uneducated" CFO will automatically invite you in. Sure. Also, pushing for a meeting without qualifying whether the infrastructure is there to support the service initiative is a ripe way to show how stupid you are. And the list goes on. I even asked a question about a particular objection I heard - which she replied, "Oh, he was just giving you the brushoff" - or at least she maintained that - until I went into a very detailed description of what transpired between me and the C-Level executive, to which she changed her tune quickly and advised me to "bring it up next time". Sure, no answer today...ok, maybe she had to think about it.

I felt sorry for the non-sales people on the call who would waste their time and sales cycle trying to meet and educate the CFO, while I was being a vendor meeting the IT Director to actually get into the company and discuss the service.

Sales is about following the organization, navigating, finding who is who and how it works. Maybe in some cases it is the CFO, in others it is the IT Director - but demanding it be that one, approached THIS way, for this reason is a cause for failure. Provide a value proposition, scenarios, role play, talking points and let the people present the service the best way they can to the right contacts who can make things happen - which isn't always the C-level, by the way. The C-Level has better things to do and usually that is why they have a qualified, intelligent staff of people who support them - because evaluating services and vendors is partly their job.