I am going to talk today about sales culture and how important it is to have sales culture In your company.
The other day, my wife called a doctor that she wanted to get an appointment with and the receptionist that answered the call at the Dr.’s office was very nice and said, “I apologize, but the doctor is not available until September to see new patients.” My wife said, “oh ok.” And then the receptionist said, “Okay, well thank you for calling, have a nice day.” And that was it.
Now, personally, I would call that not a sales culture because sales culture is when everybody in the company regardless of their position realizes that they are in sales or they can affect sales in a good or bad way.
Think of how the call could have gone better if the Dr.’s office had a sales culture.A few examples:
Thank you so much for calling, how can I help you? How did you hear about our office? When were you hoping to schedule an appointment? The doctor is not seeing new patients until September, but I can schedule you for the first available appointment in September and put you on a waiting list, so if we have a cancellation you can possibly come in sooner. Is that an option for you, would that be ok?
If my wife was offered a simple solution as mentioned above, I am sure she would have agreed. But that is not how the call was handled, instead the receptionist basically said, “If you do not want to schedule in September, there is no other option, goodbye.”
So you might be asking how do you establish a sales culture. Well, first of all, you have to make sure that you have the salespeople’s back and they know that you have their back. Also, something that a lot of companies struggle with is sharing sales goals with the entire company, sharing sales wins, sales losses and overhead of the company. Just be as transparent as possible, and that will help create a sales culture.
Another key to creating a sales culture is to incentivize the entire office, not just the sales people. Think about it, if you have a company and you’re doing well, but you want to grow sales, and I’m an employee and I don’t get paid any more for extra work that I do. If the office closes at 5:00 p.m. and phone rings at 5:05 p.m, am I going to answer or am I going to let the call go to voicemail. Maybe the person calling will leave a message, but maybe they won’t and that possible lead is gone. That is an example of what goes on in employee’s minds, of course not everyone’s. Some employees also think more customers equals more work and the same amount of pay, so there’s no incentive to go the extra mile. A way to level the playing field is figure out an incentive or bonus program for everybody in the entire company. There are ways to do this where it’s very reasonable and it creates a sales culture.
Does your staff know that they are in sales? Would they admit that they are in sales? Do they know how to have a conversation with potential new customers about sales? Do they realize that what they say and how they say it can affect a customer’s outlook on the company or the sales process.
Those are just a few ways to create a sales culture, I have 12 steps I like to implement to create a sales culture when companies hire us, and wanted to share a couple for you to think about.
