Three Sales Models

We use “models” to simplify, understand, and use situations which are
too complex to directly understand and engage successfully. Models allow
useful focus.

The biggest problem with a model is when we forget it is just a model
and think it is the reality. A model often stops working and needs to be
adjusted. Reality just grinds on.

I have been thinking about the three models that impact salesmen and how
they don’t seem to intersect or strengthen each other. Einstein spent
the second half of his life looking for a unified field theory. I would
think relating these three models would be somewhat easier.

The Sales Model What a salesman does to sell. The disciplines that get results.

The Social Media Model How do you use social media to leverage
your selling? What can be sold profitably on the internet and what can’t
is a distinction that eludes most managers and marketers. There is a
fantasy that the salesman can be replaced by the browser. The good news
is it can, the bad news is probably not with your offering.

The Sales Reporting Model “Take an hour a week and let me know
what you are doing…Nope, that’s not what I want.” Once, I was trying to
get some value from it, when Axon the Druid, my technology guide,
explained it to me thusly, “Dude, sales management software has two
management functions in the name. Who paid for it? What did you expect?”

Recommendations
Good salesmen spend the most time using the sales model, should spend
the next most time on the social media model. I think sales managers
should spend more time defining the sales reporting model so it might
become more than a source of disappointing surprises.

On our Sales Model, spend around 80%
of your time on face-to-face, phone/web, and events. That’s what creates
the sales. Everybody seems to have enough time for presenting and
closing, which is where that other work is rewarded.

Social Media is relatively new. Here are the best guidelines of my
social media model. A blog post is ten sentences, five paragraphs. Post
twice a week. Thoughtfully answer every comment that is not spam.
Finally, do you want to control the platform or the conversation?

Sales Reporting – I once spent 120 days redefining key activities in the
sales process for a company’s sales reporting process and proved that
they had been looking at the wrong actions since the system was
installed a decade previously. After that, production began increasing
monthly. Sales reporting should change as the market and offering
changes.

Your thoughts?