The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

My sister is an elementary school teacher in Portland, and for the last two years, has wanted a change. She recently decided to pick up everything and move to San Antonio (and before you ask, the answer is no, she’s never been there). She applied for three jobs: two teaching positions in the San Antonio School District, and one at an educational services company selling science curriculum to school districts. 

What have you been reading lately? There's so much content published every week that a person can never read it all themselves. That's why we're here.

Here are the five articles that piqued our interest:

1. 5 clear signs it's time to fire someone {Inc.}

Can you complete this statement? We exist to…

If you run your company or a business unit, or even just a sales team, there is surprising value in completing that statement—it helps define your reason for being. I have experienced first-hand the benefit that comes from knowing our reason for being. Here’s how we complete the statement at The Center for Sales Strategy:

We exist to turn talent into performance.

It wasn’t a forgone conclusion that we would define our corporate purpose in that way. We considered other possibilities. We could have said we exist to help companies hire the best people and train them well. Or, we exist to help companies increase sales. Both would have been pretty good, but not as good as the one we landed on. Our final choice got to the essence of who we are, what our passion is, and the greatest value we deliver.

My three-year-old grandson led me to a meaningful epiphany recently. We were sitting at the kitchen table playing with some Play-Doh when he watched me sink my thumb into a small ball of the clay. He pointed to my thumbprint and asked, “What’s that?”

I answered, “That’s an impression.”

Like most three-year-olds will do, he followed my answer with a question: “Why?”

“Because when I touched the Play-Doh, I left a mark on it.”

He proceeded to copycat the procedure, pressing his fingers and handprints into several lumps of clay; after each masterpiece, he would attempt to form the new word he had learned: “Look, Grandpa, I made a ‘preshun’.”

“I left a mark on it.” 

I had been to a marketing conference earlier in the week, where much of the focus was on falling CPMs, and rightfully so. Once upon a time, the cost of access to consumers was high, thanks to the relative scarcity of media. There were only one or two newspapers in most major metropolitan areas, and only a couple dozen radio and television stations (even fewer in smaller markets, of course). The law of supply and demand favored companies who distributed advertising messages, where the supply of big audiences was (comparatively) limited, and the demand was high. 

Businesses like to talk about being strategic. It’s one of those buzzwords that’s always in fashion. Some also take pride in being tactical, another buzzword that remains fashionable, even if those who use these terms don’t have any grasp at all of what they mean.

What have you been reading lately? There's so much content published every week that a person can never read it all themselves. That's why we're here.

Here are the five articles that piqued our interest:

1. The desk that bosses you around {AlleyWatch}

I recently read an article on how to get one of those choice seats in the first-class cabin. One suggestion was to be nice and smile at the gate agent. Gee, I don’t think so! Yes, I should be courteous and warm, but no, there is darn little chance that being sweet will get me upgraded. I know the computer makes those decisions based on the passenger’s status in the airline’s loyalty program, how much they paid for their ticket, when they bought it, and numerous other factors. Rarely does the gate agent have any discretion as to which of us weary travelers gets that last first-class seat.

But the article did have value—because it made me think about how salespeople get “upgraded” in the minds of our prospects. In that realm, there’s no computer and no algorithm. And while smiling probably won’t make much of a difference, how we behave totally determines how we’re perceived and whether the prospect gives us first-class treatment (an appointment) or not.

I saw this quote on the bathroom wall of my favorite Asheville coffee shop this week.

“There’s always free cheddar in the mousetrap baby.” 

It’s a lyric from a Tom Waits song, a song I’m not particularly fond of, but this lyric line got me thinking. The main message, of course, is that the easiest path is not always the best. The mouse would be better off slowly nibbling on alley scraps through the day to end up with enough food to survive, instead of trying to grab the full days’ worth of nutrition at one time from the mouse trap—making it his last meal!

As I thought about this timeless truth, I started thinking about the trap I see many new salespeople fall into. Too often, a new seller makes a quick sale or two before they know what they’re doing, before they are following the right steps and committing to enough activity.

I can still see it in my mind—the old commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Two people would run into each other, and then exchange accusations: “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate.” “No, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter.”

You should think of selling and customer service in the same way. It’s not one or the other. They should work together. That was always the case, but these days it is even more dramatically true: selling and serving should be inseparable, and nearly indistinguishable.