You are a rising sales leader. Perhaps you made it to your role through a promotion after being a top sales performer. Maybe you’ve assumed leadership of your sales team after being hired from outside the team or even from outside the company. Now you’re performing one of the essential roles of the sales manager, the joint sales call.
It’s you and your Account Manager. After a delicious free breakfast at the chain hotel where your salesperson accumulates all of her reward points, you hop in the car together to head to your first appointment. You’re wondering if today will be a milk run. In sales jargon, that’s the sequence of visits where each customer is delighted with your company, your products, and your salesperson. At least that’s what you’re expecting.
But not today. Your salesperson is on her game. She’s bringing you to the tough customers. The ones that have issues to work through. She bought into the best practice by assertive salespeople that says if you aren’t talking about difficult topics, you aren’t talking about the right topics. Surfacing conflict is the only way to really move the relationship forward. That’s why she’s bringing you with her today. As leader, you’ll surely have the magic touch to get past any obstacle.
You need to make sure that at the end of your day together, she’s not asking herself the question, “Why did my Sales Manager do that? Or say that?”
To keep those questions unasked, pay attention to these 3 things:
- Don’t hijack the meeting. You’re a pseudo-celebrity at each meeting. Depending on how high up the food chain you are, your customer may have a heightened level of interest in this meeting compared to the others he has with your salesperson. He may have expectations that he can ask for more. He may bring surprise guests into the meeting to try making his company’s requests from a few different angles. You’re important, but you are not the most important member of your company at the meeting. Your Account Manager is. Your job is to make her look good. It’s to demonstrate that you have full confidence and you support her autonomy as a decision maker for the company. You are there to facilitate the meeting and keep it moving in the direction of her objectives, which you’ve reviewed thoroughly and aligned with beforehand. Don’t take your celebrity seriously. You’re the supporting actor, not the lead.
- Be the CLO – Chief Listening Officer. One of the biggest contributions you can make when accompanying your salesperson on a customer visit, especially if your customer brings an army, is to be the second set of eyes and ears for your company. Your Account Manager is usually flying solo, trying to deliver material and digest information at the same time. While the debate about whether multi-tasking is actually a thing goes on, I subscribe to the belief that you can only do one thing well at a time. Take the pressure off your salesperson by letting her focus on her delivery and her rapport with her customer, then interject when your observations call for any redirection of her focus. Take copious notes and then review the key elements of the meeting that you captured while she was focused on her audience.
- Be active and bring value. Don’t just show up well-dressed and unprepared and expect things to fall into place because of your presence. Your audience expects something unique because of your attendance. Scoop. Insights. Advice about the business based upon your elevated vantage point. Don’t disappoint. Coordinate with your Account Manager and carve out a few modest minutes for you to deliver news on a topic of interest to your customer. A new product launch. A key development in the industry. Your management’s view of the competitive landscape. Just a slide or two or five minutes of discussion led by you. Make your customer feel they are getting something unique from your presence at the meeting that will give them an edge in how they think about their business. Don’t just bank on the hope that they’ll think you value them as a customer because you showed up.
You don’t have to dominate the scene to justify your attendance at the meeting, but you do have to do the little things that improve your company’s relationship with each customer by supporting your salesperson and making her seem invincible in her customer’s eyes. Save your heavy involvement for the coaching and guidance you provide before and after these meetings, and bring a light touch to the meeting itself.
Don’t prompt your salesperson to ask those questions about why she brought you in to begin with. You want to be invited back.
Those breakfasts are just so delicious.
Lead well.
(Please share your comments below.)
Click to visit Jim’s book page:
“The Modern Compassionate Leader – 12 Essential Characteristics of the Rising Sales Leader”
Follow Jim on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.
© Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com, 2016 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jim Martin and www.jamesmichaelmartin.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
