They kept my three mobile infantry ( the two demonstrators and the face-to-face cold caller) busy with demonstrations. Finally I had my two closers go out with my demonstrators posing as managers to close the deals. The closers taught the demonstrators how to master the close by the second week of teamwork.

By the third week, the prospecting list was blown out and I had the phone callers doing follow ups by phone and teaming up with the demonstration team to do some follow through. We made sure that each qualified prospect was seen and treated to information and extra special management perks at least five times before the short campaign was through.

By the end of the three weeks, each person who loved and mastered their specialty got a chance to focus intently on what they loved to do best. They also got to mentor someone who was very experienced at another discipline that they weren't that good at their own. They gained confidence by first exercising their specialty; they then coached others to perfect their weakness in a given area; then they tackled their own weaknesses with the help of others. They were able to accomplish these steps while working as a team and making money as a team.

Most small sales forces would not be able to work this way because the pay structure just does not allow for close team work.

What this group accomplished was miraculous in the fact that as a team they were able to improve their overall income by qualifying more leads, conducting more demonstrations and building more relationships, while making more closes. The exercise also bolstered their individual confidence by allowing them to work at their own strengths. Since they realized that they were good at a special task, they were able transition to the next weaker skill with the help of their fellow associates.

The unbeatable combination of specificity and focus in combination with solid teamwork brought the individual sales averages up by 30% and showed a marked increase in productivity. The key reason for the success of the sales experiment was the closeness and trust of the salespersons and the willingness of the sales manager to try something different.

I'm still crazy about the concept of military campaigns as sales strategy; now if I can just get my hands on the DVD version of MASH, I'd be able to make selling that much more fun.

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next