Salespeople who are “actively engaged” are the most productive. Here’s why.
Here’s a fun little stat to start your Thursday. Gallup, on a quarterly basis, surveys employees to learn how many are “actively engaged,” “disengaged,” or “actively disengaged” in their work. The specific quarter never seems to matter; the percentages tend to be consistent within a few points. Typically, only 30% are “actively engaged,” meaning that they feel an emotional connection to their workplaces and are likely to be highly productive.
50% are “disengaged,” meaning that they go through the motions. 20% are “actively disengaged,” meaning that they are actively working to hurt the company that they are working for. In my experience, that’s a typical distribution of salespeople, as well; the “actively engaged” people are the top performers. However, one thing that I find in selling is that many salespeople will say that they are engaged without being engaged. If you’re wondering if you’re really “actively engaged” or not, here are some characteristics of an engaged salesperson.
They Maximize Customer Contact: You know what your customers’ and prospects’ “window” is. The “window” is that space of time where your customers are available to be contacted. For most in the B2B world, it’s 8 AM to 5 PM weekdays. Whatever your “window” is, the engaged salesperson works – CONSTANTLY – to maximize meaningful customer contact during those hours. That means dedicating yourself to setting appointments, optimizing your schedule to minimize drive-time and other distractions, and spending as much face time as possible with your customers and prospects. Here’s another stat from my own surveying. Most salespeople spend less than 8 hours per week eyeball-to-eyeball with customers. The best will get 15-20.
They Make Every Call Meaningful: I’ve been talking about something that I call “The Purpose Driven Sales Call” for years. Most sales calls are agenda-free, and value-free, for both the salesperson and the customer. When I was in the industrial sales business, we called them “P.R. Calls.” Even on those calls, there was some potential value attached, since my customers had to deal with a salesperson (me or a competitor) to place their orders. Since the Internet has allowed customers to order without us, the P.R. Call is obsolete. The engaged salesperson makes sure that every call has an agenda attached, and that agenda will be based on a “win” for the customer, and a “win” for the salesperson that will allow the salesperson to advance the relationship.
They Don’t Have to be Told Twice: Recently, a client came to me with a concern. It seems that one of his new salespeople hadn’t built a LinkedIn profile. As you know, I’m not a believer that social networking is the be-all and end-all of selling, but let’s face it – in today’s world, if you don’t have a quality LinkedIn profile, you’re a long way behind the times. It seemed that this client had instructed his new salesperson that a LinkedIn profile was a basic part of his job, and that the salesperson had neglected to set one up for six weeks. To me, that’s a concern; salespeople shouldn’t have to be told multiple times to use important sales tools.
They are Self Reliant: I’ve always viewed the salesperson as an independently functioning business generation machine. This relates a bit to the point above, but entirely too many salespeople have to be told to prospect, given leads, handed this, and handed that. Don’t get me wrong – resources like marketing campaigns, etc. are nice – but if those aren’t available, the engaged salesperson finds ways to make things happen on his/her own.
They are Constantly Focused on Growth: This is probably the underlying characteristic of the engaged salesperson. He/she wakes up in the morning asking, “What can I do today to grow my business?” and ends the day asking, “What did I do to grow the business?”
As I said above, most salespeople – unfortunately – simply go through the motions. The truth is that engaging yourself isn’t that much harder, it’s far more rewarding, and it’s a heck of a lot more fun. Be honest with yourself. If you’re not fulfilling the above points, today might be a good day to start.
