In a previous blog post we talked about the pros and cons of offering an existing staff member a promotion into sales rather than hiring an experienced sales person.

When I left the military service, I wanted to be in sales. I went to an office park and literally “knocked on doors” to see if anyone wanted to hire a sales person. Someone did—a distributor of packaging supplies.

I became their fist “sales trainee” in their brand new one-year training program.

The first three months I was assigned to the warehouse, loading and unloading trucks and filling orders. The next nine months I went to “office manager,” which was a combination of inside sales, purchasing and supervising the receptionist. The guy in that job, Pete, was promoted to outside sales. My new job was great training for the business, but after about five weeks, I did not know how I was going to make it for nine months. I liked the business, but I hated those four walls!

Suddenly I learned that Pete was in trouble. Pete had never been trained as a sales person. He was great at helping people over the phone, but he was so nervous about going to see people, that he was throwing up every morning.

With his permission I went to the VP and said, “Put me in Coach!”

So I went outside, and Pete came back in. Pete thrived and retired from that company doing essentially the office manager job. I moved on to other industries, but have been in outside sales ever since.

What can be done with an internal promotion in a small company to insure a non-sales person promoted from within succeeds?

• Take the sales position candidate on sales calls for several days, and let him/her try to handle some calls on his/her own.

• Choose a person who understands to not take “rejection” personally; that a “no” is about the offering, not about them.

• Choose a person with an “I am here to help you” attitude. This is hard to “teach,” even to someone who is competent technically.

• Choose someone who is open to learning new things, a necessity in sales.

 Put your new sales person through a training program teaching “customer –needs focused selling,” teaching them:

1.)  That selling is doing things for and with people, not “to them.”

2.) How to interview to find out needs, before presenting a proposal.

3.) How do deal with different types of buyer behavior styles.

4.) How to get the prospect involved in the demonstration of the product at proposal or demonstration time.

5.) That pressure to buy is not exerted by the sales person.

6.) How to “ask for the order” at the correct time.

When you select a good person, proper training is the key to insuring your home-grown sales person hits home runs for your business, and for their long term growth.

Building People to Build Business

J. Mark Walker