Because of the intense competitiveness of today’s business environment, sales managers exhort their salespeople to get in front of more customers and don’t come back until they have the order. While this may seem like a worthy goal, the expectation is unrealistic.

“I made 90 calls and talked to four people and got through to one decision maker,” said a young salesperson. “The general manager is on my back to make sales….My company doesn’t have respect for what I’m doing and gives me no support.” Is this just whining? Or is it an indication of the problem many salespeople face today: a lack of meaningful company support.

Today, as in the past, salespeople spend their time trying to figure out ways to get in the customer’s face. They concentrate on attempting to make a contact, build rapport, create a personal relationship, and identify the customer’s so-called “hot buttons.”

The telephone still rings and a friendly voice asks, “Do you want to save money?” or, “All I need is 20 minutes of your time to show you what we can do for you. Would tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. be best or Wednesday at 10:00 a.m.?” Or “Are you the person who is responsible for buying insurance?” Notwithstanding dramatic innovations in technology, the pursuit of the customer remains virtually unchanged.

This approach to selling is not only hopelessly inefficient and expensive, but it is also painfully ineffective. Salespeople will admit their number one problem is getting an appointment. If they get in, they encounter a second hurdle: the doubting and defensive prospect.

The solution to the “how-do-I-make-contact-with-the-customer” problem will not be solved by exhortations by sales managers to “Do it faster. Do it better” or “Get up and get going.”

Each year American business spends tens of millions of dollars attempting to motivate its sales force. Most of these dollars are wasted since it is assumed that the fault rests with the salespeople. It does not. The problem is with the sales philosophy of the company employing them. The selling situation can be summarized in these words:

The key to successful selling is having motivated prospects.
While everyone agrees that this is the goal, few implement strategies that help reach it. Salespeople will have more than enough motivation to improve their skills and sell at top speed if they have prospects who want to talk with them. The solution isn’t to be found in trying to get salespeople to change; it rests in the proper preparation of prospects.

It is the motivated prospect who offers a salesperson the ideal selling opportunity. If this is so, why do businesses fail to establish programs that produce the desired results? Why do they try to change the sales force when they should be developing prospects? Since we know what works, why do we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot?

The only effective approach is to get the customer or prospect to want to do business with the salesperson. Instead of spending time to find the customer, the customer must find the salesperson, and want what is being offered.

This process is made up of five components:
1. Identify the customer. Too many businesses fail at the basics, including knowing precisely who they want to do business with if they have the opportunity.

Identifying the customer is a multifaceted process, and most businesses fail to take the task seriously. The worst possible assumption is expressed by these words: “We know our customers.” Developing in-depth profiles of customers who fit various niches of the business is the first step. Creating databases of the identified customer types is the second step. Knowing precisely who your company wants to influence is essential.
2. Get inside the customer’s head. If assuming you know your customers is the first fatal flaw, assuming you know what they want is the second.

The sales manager of a medical gases company insisted that low price was all his accounts cared about. “Our customers want good service and the lowest possible price. That’s it.” A customer survey uncovered different results: Scratched and dirty cylinders, late deliveries, and unresponsive equipment repair service were the major issues.

When its customers downsized their staffs, a data processing firm recognized an opportunity by offering to inventory their forms. This outsourcing helped retain and attract customers.

Grasping precisely what the customer wants is called “magnetic power.”

Pull the customer to you. Once it is clearly understood what drives the customer, the “magnetic field” is ready to be created. The customer-created message or “pull” can be used in a variety of applications, from sending direct mail pieces to distributing newsletters, holding seminars, placing articles in trade, business and consumer publications and advertising. In every instance, however, the goal is to present your company as a valuable, unequaled resource.

The key here is to let customers know that you understand their business, the issues they face, and the steps that should be taken to make their businesses more successful. Creating the proper environment is key and it must be in place before a salesperson walks through a prospect’s door.

The goal is to get the customer to want to do business with you, and to give that customer a way to respond. The results are both long term and immediate.

An insurance agency created extended access hours — 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. — for its customers and prospects using a special 800 number and email. The calls and messages started immediately. A dental office remodeling contractor received more than 80 replies — a 10 percent response — from dentists in the first week following a direct mail promotion which indicated he understood how they do business.

On the other hand, a prospect telephoned a burglar alarm firm two years after he had clipped out a trade journal article written by the president of the company. “I knew the time would come when I would need you,” commented the prospect, the CEO of a chain of retail stores.

This can mean now or for however long it takes to get the business.
4. Turn up the power. Once a company has created its magnetic field, the job is to turn up the power. Seek new ways to enlarge the magnetic force by identifying and focusing on additional prospect niches, extending the pull beyond the current marketing area and enhancing existing databases. Constantly seeking new opportunities to pull customers to your company, product or service must be the guiding principle.
5. Keep your hands on the controls. An all too prevalent tendency is to view everything in a business as a project, an activity with a definable time frame. Project thinking leads to each and every activity as essentially limited. Once it is completed, there will never be a need to repeat it. Finish the project and move on to something else.

Marketing is not a project; it is an integral part of the company’s total, ongoing operations. It is not something you turn on when sales are down or turn off after a new service is launched. Once the magnetic field is turned off there is a residual effect, but the pull diminishes rapidly, as competitors fill the void.

Implementing this five-step process totally changes the selling process. It puts a company and its salespeople in the position of being wanted by customers, just where they must be in order to makes sales.

This approach also demonstrates the inappropriateness of the belief that “nothing happens until someone sells something.” At the heart of selling today is a different concept: Nothing happens until someone wants to buy something. Once this occurs, the professional salesperson is in business.

(Editor’s Note: John R. Graham is president of Graham Communications, a marketing services and sales consulting firm and the author of The New Magnet Marketing — a revised and updated version of his original book, Magnet Marketing, and 203 Ways To Be Supremely Successful In The New World Of Selling. He also writes for a variety of publications and speaks on business, marketing and sales topics. He is the recipient of an APEX Grand Award in writing. He can be reached at (617) 328-0069, j_graham@grahamcomm.com or www.grahamcomm.com.).