Successful Selling in the Credit Crunch by Colin Forster

And Willy Walsh, Chief Executive of BA summed up the dangers of curtailing training during an interview on Radio 4’s  Today programme (16/5/08). Asked what was the biggest mistake made in the T5 debacle, he said “allowing delays in the building programme to impact on the staff training and familiarisation programme that we had put in place”. He admitted they had compromised on the programme.  So many companies make the mistake of cutting training when times get tough leaving their people without the skills and knowledge to deal with difficult conditions. Hopefully it won’t cost them the £40-50 million it’s estimated this mistake will cost BA.

In reality when business conditions are difficult, selling assumes an even greater importance, so great in fact that it’s too important to be left in sole the hands of the salespeople. The canny companies maintain at the very least and sometimes increase sales by making sure everyone gets involved in the sales effort. For those people in roles that previously had little direct contact with the customer this is a very new situation which presents something of a challenge.

The Reluctant Salespeople

At Cmt we are noticing an increasing number of clients coming to us requesting help for these people. Problems typically include: -

• Poor interpersonal skills and personal impact
• Fear of presenting and/or lack of presentation skills
• Poor understanding of how the sales process works
• Mistrust of salespeople
• Poor teamworking
• Poor communication skills

We call them the “reluctant salespeople”. The salespeople have traditionally kept customers away from these people for good reasons, they often see them as a hindrance to the sales process rather than an asset. The good news is the situation can be changed, by debunking some of the myths and legends about selling and showing them how the sales process works, fear and prejudice is removed. If this is combined with the provision of some of the skills required to support the sales process our “reluctant salespeople” can become a very powerful weapon in winning and retaining customers. Finally, the so called soft skills are often seen as the soft option, however Microsoft recently asked 500 UK companies what their most sort after skills were, top of the list came Interpersonal Skills and Teamworking. These are not soft skills but transferable cognitive skills essential to all in a modern business. Technical expertise is not enough. 

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