Do’s and Don’ts of Sales Success Professor Lynette Ryals Steve Macaulay We are going to look today at some specific do’s and don’ts for sales people and sales leaders. And the reason for this is that we have been doing some research in that area and there are some very specific things that have come out of it. Now, to help look at this issue is Professor Lynette Ryals. Lynette has been doing some research and it was published in the Harvard Business Review. Lynette, sales success, what does it look like in practice? Lynette Ryals I think this is a key message for sales leaders that when we are looking at complex business to business selling, that it is important that we measure sales success, not just in terms of walking away with the deal, but in terms of moving the sales forward. Now the reason for that is that these sales processes are normally 18 months to 24 months – they are long sales processes. If sales leaders and sales managers focus too much on the actual getting the deal, what might happen is that they are encouraging sales people always to go for the easy wins. And those easy wins are likely to be the less valuable deals than they could working on. So we need to think differently about that measure of sales success. Steve Macaulay Are there any other areas that we need to think and do differently, if you like, the don’ts? Lynette Ryals This is a great question. Something that came very strongly out of the Harvard Business Review article was that very aggressive selling techniques are actually negatively associated with sales success. So I feel that there is something about unlearning some previous bad behaviours; that this kind of hard selling is not appropriate in the longer term, in major business to business relationships. Steve Macaulay So you mean things like closing techniques, for instance? Lynette Ryals Absolutely, yes. And that very aggressive kind of closing and closing too early during the process, bearing in mind, as I have been saying, that these are typically much longer sales processes. Steve Macaulay Now let’s look at the more positive angle, because some things came out of your research about if you are doing some of those things, you are more likely to be successful – what are they? Lynette Ryals Well that is absolutely right, and in fact there were some very strong indicators around things like what we call adaptive selling. So more flexibility, more thinking about the solution for the client, the benefit for your customer and also actually selling the value – the value © Cranfield University www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com 1 Professor Lynette Ryals
proposition – rather than just, as it were, selling the product that the firm makes, what is the solution, what is the value to the customer? And it is around that kind of area, about that flexibility and adaptiveness. Also there is something around dealing with customer objections and, as it were, negotiating and managing all the way through the deal. So these are important and different behaviours that we need to encourage. Steve Macaulay Yes, because they are not terribly common are they from what your research suggested? Lynette Ryals Well that is right. And in fact the Harvard Business Review article was indicating that perhaps only just over a third of sales people are typically demonstrating these behaviours and I think that is maybe something that we should talk about a little bit more when we think about the implications for sales directors. Steve Macaulay So if we pick up these implications, there is clearly an area here for training and development. Can you say more specifically what you would like to see? Lynette Ryals Absolutely. I think we need to say to sales directors our research shows be very careful how you train your sales people. I suspect that there is still a lot of training that is going on in the area of presentation skills and actually we have seen that that has no relationship to sales success. In fact, in some ways it may be detrimental because it may focus sales people perhaps on delivering their presentation no matter what, whereas actually what is needed is something that is more adaptive and more flexible – more about listening to the customer and less about just delivering the sales pitch. Steve Macaulay So careful listening, carefully responding to any objections, talking about value – those are the sort of things that you are talking about? Lynette Ryals That is absolutely right, yes. Steve Macaulay So key message then; what would it be? Lynette Ryals The key message is a rather shocking one for sales directors, which is that we couldn’t find any relationship between effective sales behaviours and the degree to which they are used by sales people. In other words, there is not a tendency for sales people to use more effective sales behaviours. So the key message there is make sure your sales people understand the value of these more adaptive, more flexible types of sales behaviours – that they understand what kinds of behaviours are effective. The kinds of things we have been talking about. They © Cranfield University www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com 2 Professor Lynette Ryals
need also to understand the kinds of behaviours that are ineffective, that are positively damaging to their chances of sales success. And I would say the take away for sales directors, in a nutshell, is you can change your sales people’s behaviours; you will need some combination of training for sure, but also I think coaching and mentoring. And I would certainly say observe your sales people in the sales situation; what kinds of behaviours are they using? And then look at whether those behaviours are effective or not. Steve Macaulay Lynette, some very valuable messages there, thank you. © Cranfield University www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com 3