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Let’s talk about how to recruit top sales & marketing talent. There are lots of people who get into sales and marketing for the wrong reasons. So there are a lot of people out there who actually don’t have what it takes in order to be successful at sales and marketing.

This month I want to share a success from a friend and customer of mine. You’ll find in this story two important sales tactics for beating your competition.

From Chris Chalmers of Quova Inc:

“We sell a commodity product (geographic data) that is available from a variety of competitors and public sources. Recently, we lost a major account to a competitor, and based on our long-standing relationship with them, they consented to debrief us on what went wrong. Obviously we had an account management issue, and there had been a service problem or two. But the clincher was our competitor was perceived as “more helpful” and “more expert” because they were offering all sorts of unsolicited suggestions about how to use the product.

“That was a real surprise – Shouldn’t the customer already know what they were going to do with the product? Otherwise they wouldn’t have bought it, right? How much advice can you give when your product is a simple commodity?

It is very easy to fall into a trap with the customer by extending offerings beyond that of what the company infrastructure is able to supply in a reasonable timeline.

When it seems everybody is using great graphics, and there are so many marketing messages competing for our customers’ attention, Phil Ashforth, Synergy Coaching Business Coach, asks us to consider what we can do to make our offer, stand apart from the crowd.

I remember moving my family to Argentina as Vice President of Sales for Latin America. I was in charge of managing five regional offices, Argentina of course being one of them.

A sales candidate’s resume will tell you about the sales experience of an applicant and other work related information that might impact performance in the sales position you have open. If the candidate’s smart, the resume will also highlight past successes in glowing terms. However, just because it is written in the resume, doesn’t mean what is written there is true or that the candidate can repeat the successes that are listed or attain the performance levels again for you. What is vital for you to learn in selecting a candidate for an open sales position, is how well a candidate will perform in a job like the one you are trying to fill. Often a employment interview will never even touch on the candidate’s competence for the new position.

Sales training programs encompass a variety of necessary components; things like company policies, sales paperwork, CRM/sales force automation orientation, sales processes, company services, sales skill training and product features and benefits.

But when I ask Sales executives and Sales trainers how their current sales training program is aligned with their sales performance issues I get the look of “No speak English’.

Many sales meetings are boring and a waste of salespeople’s time, say the majority of salespeople I interview. A review of what’s going on in the market is good to know, but to be effective, sales meetings need to be a lot more than that venues for quick market updates.

Question: What do the following have in common?

- I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels and not getting very much done.

- I am continually frustrated with the performance of my sales team.

- Why can’t my sales team be more independent thinkers? They come to me with EVERYTHING!

How do you get your sales team solidly behind your telephone sales campaign and telephone sales goals?

Here are 5 Training Tips for Sales Managers:

1. Identify your goals

• Identify the goal of your telephone sales campaign.