Using your SADAR properly

Are your sales people selling to the right people?

Have you ever noticed that it is easy for your sales people to get meetings with the wrong people?

Yes, they did their 6 calls today. Who did they meet with? Would they have been better off doing 3 meetings with better prospects?

What every great sales person needs in their kit bag is a great SADAR. Sales radar.

Your SADAR allows you to quickly work out if the person you are selling to is actually interested in what you are selling and has the power to purchase it. The key word in that previous sentence is quickly.

A lot of prospects indicate they like what you are selling. The reality is they may like you and enjoy meeting with you. Unfortunately they may never purchase from you. This is hard to appreciate when you are new to selling. Everyone seems interested in what you are offering. They keep saying things like:

"This sounds interesting, please send me some more information".

"I would like to look at that in more detail".

The tough part of sales success

One of the toughest things in selling is actually getting in front of the people who make the decision to buy what you are selling.

Companies are full of gatekeepers, blockers, rottweilers with lipstick, HR assistants etc.

These people all have very important jobs to do. Part of their role can involve not letting sales people actually get to the people they need to get to.

If your SADAR is working well you should be able to see these positive actions in the first 5 minutes of meeting a new customer.

• They laugh with you, not at you
• They have done some homework on you or your company before you arrive
• The get you and the value you bring
• They don't want to spend too much time with you as they have other priorities
• Their non-verbals indicate they are comfortable about doing business with you

 Here are my top 8 ways of identifying if you are selling to the wrong person:

1. It is easy to get a meeting with them
2. When you are meeting with them they are happy to spend a lot of time with you
3. They tell you they are going through a restructure at the moment
4. They ask you to send them lots of information after the meeting
5. They don't reveal much about how they will pay for what you are selling in the meeting
6. There are no agreed actions coming out of the meeting from them, only from you
7. They don't respond promptly to you trying to communicate with them post the initial meeting
8. They ask you to stay in touch, but provide you with no real time lines about when or why

What can your sales people do to get in front of more of the right type of people?

1. Work from the top down. Aim to get meetings with the most senior people you can. These people are harder to get meetings with. There is a reason for this. They are busy. Most of their days are spent making decisions about the growth of their business. Shoot for the stars and you might hit the moon.
2. Ask better questions earlier in the sales process.
3. Ask for referrals from decision makers.
4. Use your meetings with the people who are easy to meet with to get permission to get to decision makers. Make them feel good about recommending you. Don't cut them out of the loop. Make them feel part of the process.
5. Have the people you want to be meeting with reading about you or hearing about you or your company from sources of influence.

Most sales people I have worked with over the years are comfortable about selling at a certain level. It seems they get intimidated by selling to more senior people.

Keep reminding your sales people how valuable their time is. Show them ways of getting to the right people.

Ask them about how they use their SADAR.

Remember it takes time.

Coach them properly on how to ask better questions, earlier in the sales process.

If it was easy, everyone else would do it.

Posted in Sales; Tagged Sales, Sales Management; Posted 27 July 2011 by Steve Herzberg