The Sales Archaeologist

Sales and Selling are constantly in a state of flux or change – this is caused by a number of variables.

• Timing - What works today may not work tomorrow.
• People - What works with one buyer may not work with another.
• Industry - What is effective in one industry may be a bomb in another.
• Market – Sometimes a boom, sometimes a bust.

So I was interested to read this article hospitals and clinics starting to build sales organizations – this is of course something they have not done in the past and so it certainly represents a huge shift in their marketplace. It was curious however to see the methods that many of these organizations intend to employ as they go about doing this.

If you read the article you will notice that they intend to draw reps from the pharmaceutical industry which has had layoffs and if you read on you notice that it sounds like their sales model will actually duplicate the traditional pharmaceutical model – visit doctors, schmooze and share information.

Why the desire for “sameness”?

So let me get this straight – you are starting to develop a new sales strategy and you are:

• Going to model that on one that didn’t really create success for the industry that created it.
• Resulted in a lot of sales people being let go
•  Put the industry itself in question – was it ethical?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to either build your sales organization from scratch or to model it after one that has had success? This is after all going to involve finding new business and that is not something that most Pharmaceutical reps are used to doing. At best most reps from that space are ambassadors or account managers – not true hunters.

But this issue is not unique to big companies or to business strategies.

Sales people should constantly be thinking about their approach to selling and looking for new ways to tackle issues and challenges. It is vital that they sound fresh and excited, it is important that they appear relevant and expert to every single prospect and that they differentiate themselves at every turn. Amazingly we all get stuck in ruts, we imitate our competitors and follow the “rules” that come from…..well we don’t know where they come from, but we follow them anyway.

What can you do today to break out of the mold and shatter the paradigm? How can you sound different? How can you appear unique? What will you ask today that will differentiate you from everyone else? What can you talk about that will immediately tell the prospect that you are not the same? What is Timely? What is big picture? What are you thinking about that they are not?

Can you answer those questions? Why not take a minute and try before you make that next call?