The Richwood Report

The Scale Press carried a helpful article on the current picture for selling. A survey mentioned in the article found that of

1300 sales professionals, only 49% of the reps met or exceeded their quotas for the year (2003) and for firms with less than 50 employees, it was 46.6%.

Different sales methods are recommended for selling in such an atmosphere. The article is available on the author's website. Another quote that seemed made for Richwood folks:

Communicate competence. Salespeople like to talk about how their products or services are innovative, cutting edge and far ahead of the competition. While that may resonate with some customers, it’s far more important for the customer to see the salesperson as innovative.

The marketing consultant was asked to prepare a new brochure. “Why do you want a brochure and how do you plan to use it?” he asked.

By drilling down further, he found that the sales force was actually looking for support with prospecting and the one tool that came to mind was a brochure. Needless to say, the brochure was scratched and a prospecting program was developed and implemented.

The key to making sales is displaying competence in coming up with the right solutions.