Sell the investment. When the investment for the solution is less than the cost of the problem an easy sale is made. That is, of course, if a professional salesperson makes that case in a professional manner.
After selling our company and our solution, I demonstrate the financial opportunity available to the successful candidate. For purposes of illustration, let’s say I have thirty applicants in the room. Before doing anything else, I address them in the following way:
Ladies and gentleman, by looking around this room you can see that we have had an almost overwhelming response to the ad we ran; there are approximately thirty of you here. To conduct personal interviews with each of you individually, spending the time necessary to answer my questions and yours, would take no less than thirty minutes for each of you, and there just isn’t enough time to do that properly. So I thought I should do this a different way.
First, I think you all would like to know more about my company so you can decide if you’d like to represent it.
Second, I think you want to know about the product my company sells.
Third, you should want to know why anyone would want to purchase our product.
Fourth, you likely want to know what kind of financial reward is in store for successful salespeople here.
Fifth, some of you may want to know what is up the road with a company like mine, what sort of career path is available to qualified candidates.
Sixth, you may want to know what my company does to help salespeople succeed, what kinds of training we’ll provide.
And so, with your permission, I plan to do all of that first, and then after I’m finished, if you think this sounds like something you’d like to do and would like to take the next step, I will conduct personal interviews with you after this meeting. Does that sound fair?
I have made that speech hundreds of times, and no one has ever said no, it isn’t fair, because it obviously is fair. In effect I’m letting the salespeople interview the company first, and only if they like what they hear will they let me interview them. Only then will it be the salesperson’s turn to sell me.
So then after that speech and buy-in from the group, I sell the company as I demonstrated above. I sell the product. I sell the problem, followed by the solution the product solves, which brings me all the way back to earning potential.
Selling earning potential requires that I know my company’s average sales numbers. Using those numbers, here is an example of what I have done in a group environment that produces the results I was hoping for. I say:
Ladies and gentleman, now that you know more about my company, the products we market, the reason customers buy our products, and the problems our product solves for our customers, let’s talk about how much money an average salesperson can earn working for ABC company; to do that I will need your help.
It takes our salespeople approximately thirty minutes to tell a prospective customer everything I’ve told you about my company, product, and services. And it takes approximately another fifteen minutes to do the paperwork, and, finally another fifteen minutes on average to get to the next prospect. The entire process takes approximately one hour including travel time. Given the time involved, if you were hired and trained to do this, how many presentations should I expect you to make in a day’s time?
Ready to write the answers on a whiteboard, I look around the room for hands to go up. Typically someone raises a hand and says four. I repeat that number and then write it on the board. I look around and ask, “Anyone else?” Then someone says five. Again I repeat the number and write it on the board. Invariably someone says seven or eight, and each time I write those answers on the board too.
Next I repeat the answers and say that all are possible depending on how hard one works, and I say, “Let’s use four, which happens to be the lowest number. Is that fair?” I usually get a lot of nods of agreement. After all, considering the range of answers, four seems like a small number. I erase the other answers and write “4” on the left side of the board.
Next I ask, “If I were to hire you, how many days per week should I expect you to work?” Hands usually shoot up quickly to that question. As I point at people whose hands go up, I get answers. The first is usually five. I repeat “five” and say, “So a typical five-day workweek, right?” Then I write that number on the board. I ask again, “Any others?” Someone usually says six, to which I say, “If I were just starting a new job like this, I would probably invest a bit more time until I got better at it, so yes, six. And then I’d write that on the board. “Any others?” I ask.
Pay close attention to the person who raises a hand and says seven. I’ve even heard eight, which of course is impossible as there are only seven days in a week. However, I say pay close attention to whoever says that, because she is attempting to send you a message. She is saying, pay attention to me. I’m the person you should hire. Likely that person is also the same one who said she could do seven or eight presentations in a day.
After getting all answers on the board I say, “While all the answers are possible”—and then smile—“except of course eight, can we agree on five, a normal workweek?” Again I usually get unanimous agreement that five days per week is more than fair. So then I write:
4 x 5 = 20
Next I ask, “Again, if we hired you, how many weeks per year should we expect you to work?” The answers come quicker by now and the first I get usually is forty-nine or fifty. Whatever the answer, I repeat it as before, and then write the answer on the board, then ask if there are any more and repeat the process. Once I have all answers I say, “Why don’t we really get generous here. Let’s assume you’ve decide to treat yourself to four weeks’ vacation per year because you’ve earned it. Wouldn’t that be great?” Again getting agreement I write:
20 x 48 = 960
“Okay,” I say, “one last question. As salespeople we know there are good, better, and best closing averages. If I were to hire you what kind of closing average would you think is doable or acceptable?” The answers start sometimes with 33 1/3 percent. I say, “Okay, one-third of the presentations.” I write “33 1/3” on the board. “Any others?” Someone says 25 percent. I’d say “Okay, one-fourth of the presentations,” and write “25 percent” on the board. “Any others?” Someone says 50 percent, or 60 percent. Whatever the answer is I say okay, then write that answer on the board. (Note: Once again pay attention to who is giving you the high responses. Is it the same person?)
Exhausting the answers, I say, “Why don’t we pick the overall sales average across all sectors of selling, which is 33 percent, one out of three. I should tell you, though, that all of the answers mentioned are possible depending on your personal skill level. And let me say that anyone who is hired who wants to be a top producer can take advantage of the training programs and help we provide to get our salespeople to the top closing percentages. But for this example we’ll take the low average of 33 percent in an effort to be very conservative. Fair enough?” Looking around the room I usually see nods of agreement again. So then I write:
960/3 = 320
“Nine hundred sixty divided by three equals three hundred twenty, is that right?
“Now here is where our company averages come into play.” I say. “Our average sale pays $250.” I write that number next “320.” “So multiplying 250 dollars times 320 equals …” I then ask if anyone has a calculator. Usually one or two people begin doing the math and someone shouts out the answer, $80,000. Just for fun, when someone says $80,000 I say, “Are you sure, that much?” When he or someone else acknowledges the amount I say “Okay,”