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Positioning market segmentation, market share, and all other sophisticated components of a marketing plan are addressed in great detail by the major corporations of the world. Unfortunately what is often considered to be the unsophisticated phase of the same marketing plan -- skills and capabilities of sales people -- are delegated to the entry level managers, or even worse, to a corporate trainer who instructs by the book. The continued success of many companies, even when it lacks a technological advantage over its competitors, is due in large part to the new business development module developed by Domino Marketing © in Spring, Texas. This system has a unique sophistication and a very definite professional new business development and prospecting system. Today, selling is a science, and the ability to sell effectively, productively and professionally has evolved beyond yesterdays "Hustler," who is often perceived as the cornerstone of the buyer/seller relationship. In companies that capture market share, there takes place a very rapid evolution to the skills of their sales and marketing personnel. It's a journey referred to as the four generations of sales types. Personified here as the COMMERCIAL VISITOR, PRODUCT PEDDLER, PROBLEM SOLVER, and the SUSTAINING RESOURCE type. In this classification system, only 10% of all sales people evolve to the professional or desired third (PROBLEM SOLVER) and fourth (SUSTAINING RESOURCE) type generation levels, which feature highly productive prospecting and selling skills. COMMERCIAL VISITOR There are three basic characteristics of commercial visitors: They place an emphasis on establishing close personal and emotional relationships with clients. Their intent is to make the buyer like them, so they become personally involved. Heavy emphasis is placed on giving gifts, such as theater or sports tickets. They believe subconsciously they will secure the order because their clients feel the business is owed to them. An awareness of the prospects personal facts is good business. An occasional lunch or social activity has value. However when it is closely related to the reason for the sale, these first generation sales people are exceptionally vulnerable to competitive sales personnel who are at the third or fourth generation selling skill level. They whittle down their territories and follow a habitual routing system. Few new accounts are actively solicited or sold. The sales person, because of the reputation and lack of challenge in the territory, begins to become dissatisfied or even bored in the job. They are very desirous of being measured by their activities, not by their results. Commercial visitors relate well to "call reports," those laborious repetitive listings of where there sales people have been, because they emphasize the number of calls and the number of hours they work each week rather than their actual sales productivity. They are at times zealously loyal and always ready for "other duties" -- those special assignments which free them momentarily from actual selling. Forty percent, (40%) of all sales people function by measuring their activities and not their results. Their career in selling is at a skill level a sales person should progress beyond after only 18 to 24 months of sales experience. PRODUCT PEDDLER After first generation sales people learn that their activities will no longer suffice in lieu of productivity, they progress to the second generation, or PRODUCT PEDDLER stage. They have experienced management's demand for sales to new classes of trade, new types of business or, simply, new prospects or clients. They are pressured to sell the whole product line and they must take action. Product peddlers go through the motions, detailing product after product, service after service, feature after feature, and then almost in a daring manner (and perhaps over simplified here), they will ask the prospect, somewhat threatening, "DO YOU NEED ANY?" Product-oriented sales people have become so because of pressure. Pressure is most often associated with the "top down" phenomenon - the pressure that management exerts on subordinates to get them to change their skills. Management does this by legislating the actual number of sales calls people should make or what sales tools they should use. However in this new millennium, management pressure will not mandate or effect an actual change to selling skills. Sales people will be motivated to change their selling skills only when pressure results from other sales people who, with the same products, same prices and the same management, are out-selling and out-producing the commercial visitor and product peddler by large margins. Product peddlers are sales people who mentally or physically carry the product into the prospect and begin with a product "pitch" When one recognizes that the most productive professional sales representatives in the world never sell on the first sales call, it makes the effectiveness of the product peddler who does somewhat questionable. Some fifty percent (50%) of all people selling today are product peddlers. A one way dialog with the client is a characteristic of this type of sales person. There is very little probing by the sales person of the customers needs, from the customer's point of view. PROBLEM SOLVER Professional third or fourth generation sales people initially try to discover the customers need from the customer's point of view. Their objective is to solve the real customer's problems, to contribute to the customers business and deliver value as well as a product. All mandatory activities for identifying the customer's needs are done before any discussion of product or service takes place. After that is done, then they will satisfy those same needs profitability with tailored systems rather than isolated products or components. They possess all the product knowledge of the product peddler.. They have the loyalty and commitment of the commercial visitor. But those factors are their foundation or base and are not descriptive of their whole self. Problem solvers have empathy. They want to be sincere to their clients, and they are motivated to conduct a customer needs analysis with each new client and all existing customers. The needs analysis begins by using the open ended questioning technique. Open-ended questions cannot be answered "yes" or "no" and they facilitate the customer's response. It communicates interest and it creates an environment wherein the prospect freely communicates his needs. They follow the questioning exercise with a physical survey. A hands on, look and see approach to finding out about the clients operation. Characteristically, following such an indent customer need analysis the problem solver still will not enter into a product presentation. Their professional response to their clients most likely will be "I believe I understand your situation and needs. However I'd like to discuss what I've learned with other members of my company's team. And if we can come up with something, some solution to help, may I get back to you?" What results is credibility, and today that factor is mandatory in selling. Only nine (9%) of all persons engaged in selling have evolved to this proficient, professional selling skill level. SUSTAINING RESOURCE TYPE Only a minuscule one- percent (1%) of the world's sales people has progressed to the fourth professional level of selling skill. The sustaining resource type has a stature and image that progresses beyond the empathy of the problem solver. The sustaining resource level sales person must have a definite expertise that in itself has a mandatory value to the customer. Because expertise is often a component of their systems and usually provided cost free as part and parcel of the sale, these people are in demand. They know the customers business as well as they know their own. Their credibility is such and their expertise so complete, that they receive invitations to participate in the formation of the prospects goal setting, or their clients 5 to 10 year planning and forecasting activities. The story is told that in the early years of computers a well now manufacturer's attempts to sell and to penetrate the banking market were unsuccessful. The company took its in-house computer specialists and had the venture out to sell computers to the banking industry. It was only natural when the company's computer specialists spoke with bankers they talked computers. Sales were less than they desired. Sustaining resource type sales representatives were needed. So this computer manufacturer recruited and hired bankers. A basic but complete training program in computer technology was given with each new employee. They were bankers selling to bankers, and they talked banking. Banks began to perceive the computer company's representatives as knowing their business as well as they knew their own. Consequently, computer sales sky rocketed. Such a skill, such an identity in the marketplace provided these sales types a form of invincibility in the eyes of the competitors. HOW TO SELL There is a real danger in telling or suggesting to veteran sales people how to sell. Sales people on their own must regularly evaluate where they are in terms of their own selling skills and their peers. If they are honest and realistic with themselves they do not have to be told how to sell. They know what it takes and are in constant evolutionary process to the fourth generation, or sustaining resource level. There is a definite method of ascertaining if you and your sales force are perceived by the market as problem solvers or sustaining resource types. For a period of thirty (30) days, monitor incoming telephone calls to your office and your sales people. Determine how many, if any, are requesting help. A company that receives no customer requests for expertise, for problem solving, or for help has a sales force of commercial visitors and product peddlers, and is in trouble. Back to top