Evaluating Your Sales Team

This third installment in our “You Can Always Sell More” series discusses how to begin evaluating your team’s selling skills and improve their consistency. (You can download full versions of the first three articles in the series for free. Use your e-mail address to register and enter “issa” as your password. If you encounter any problems, please call Paul Pyle at 800-526-0074.)

Helping your sales team members complete a comprehensive 20-question evaluation of their selling skills (available on-line) is one of the best ways to increase their awareness and begin the educational change process. Each evaluation generates a free customized report offering improvement suggestions.

You and your team will receive the most positive results from these evaluations if you yourself complete a 20-question evaluation on each sales team member, evaluating how you, as their sales manager, see their selling skills. Then, meet individually with each rep to discuss his or her evaluation.

Ask your reps how they evaluated themselves and why. Share how you evaluated each skill, discussing any inconsistencies between the two scores. Next, help them build a list of skill areas that could provide the greatest payback if improved.

Improving Operational Skills
The majority of sales professionals learn to sell by trial and error — no training, just raw experience. This lack of structure leads to selling practices based on hunches and intuition. One way to profoundly increase overall selling success is to build operational selling skills that add more structure and consistency to daily selling efforts.

To help do this, try reviewing the operational questions on the sales evaluation:

Question 1: Your technical knowledge of your products/services and how they relate to your industry is...? A sales call will end, and all credibility will leave, if your customer realizes you don’t know your products or services.

Question 2: Your knowledge of your competitors’ products and their customer success stories are...? A lack of solid competitive knowledge hinders you from successfully pursuing prospects.

Question 3: Your knowledge and daily usage of the steps of a sales call is...? Can you write down the steps of a sales call? As simple as this sounds, most experienced salespeople cannot complete this exercise.

Question 4: Your understanding of personalities and your ability to identify, then mirror, your customer’s communications style is...? Although many sales professionals believe they exhibit effective “personality awareness,” they often only utilize an intuitive approach. Yet the most popular “customer personality flexibility” training structure, “The Four Quadrants of Personality,” states that each personality type requires a vastly different style of persuasive selling to be effective.

Question 5: Your personal “time and territory” organizational skills are...? Most salespeople have a disorganized, inefficient customer-information tracking system and are overwhelmed with customer requests, paperwork, and “to-do” lists. Ask a few detailed questions about some of your team’s important accounts to see how efficient they are in retrieving the information.

Question 6: Your ability to utilize technology to increase your productivity and effectiveness is...? Check out your local community college or large computer store for training in various software and computer tools.

Don’t miss the 2007 ISSA Regional Sales Meeting, Improving Brand You, featuring Jim Pancero: April 18, Atlanta, GA; May 8, Orlando, FL; May 9, Durham, NC; May 16, Rosemont, IL; and May 17, Ledyard, CT.

Regulatory News

ISSA Assists in EPA Program Recognition
At the prodding of ISSA, the recently issued New Jersey Request for Proposal for Environmentally Preferable Cleaning Products defines as “green” those chemical-based cleaning products that are recognized by the U.S. EPA Design for the Environment (DfE) Formulator Program, in addition to products certified by Green Seal® and EcoLogoM.

As such, New Jersey is the first state to issue a green cleaning product procurement policy that formally recognizes as environmentally preferable those cleaning products that are in turn recognized under the DfE Formulator Program. ISSA was instrumental in convincing New Jersey officials to adopt this broader, more multifaceted definition of environmentally preferable cleaners.

Free Choice?
On March 1, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), designed to make it significantly easier for unions to organize workers.
ISSA has joined with the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the National Association of Manufacturers to oppose H.R. 800 because it would eliminate more than 70 years of precedent established under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, taking away employees’ freedom to choose under a federally supervised, secret-ballot election when deciding whether or not to join a union. It would replace the private, secret-ballot election with a system called “card check,” which allows a union to organize if a majority of employees simply sign an authorization card. Under this system, the employees’ signatures are made public to the employer, the union organizers and co-workers.
Welcome New ISSA Members!
Ability Janitorial Services Ltd.
Ottawa, ON, Canada

Ajax Commercial Cleaning, Inc.
Cuyahoga Falls, OH

AJ's Cleaning, Inc.
Colorado Springs, CO

All N One Cleaning
Gainesville, LA

Alliance Building Services
Freemont, CA

Anago of Chicago
Wood Dale, IL

Aztec Building Maintenance, Inc.
Wichita, KS

Beelabor Janitorial Services, Inc.
Fairfax, VA

Bilder's Cleaning Service, Inc.
Evansville, IN

Choice Cleaning Contractors, Inc.
Rogers, AR

Clean 4 You
New Phila, OH

Clean Team
Holland, OH

Clean Tech Co.
St. Louis, MO

Clean Works Services, Inc.
Lancaster, PA

Commercial Building Maintenance, Inc.
Dallas, TX

Commercial Cleaning Services, Inc.
Wilmington, DE

Coverall - Twin Cities
Bloomington, MN

Done Right Cleaning Services, Inc.
Orchard, PA

Dow Building Services
N. Little Rock, AR

ECBS Clean Team
Howell, MI

Elite Environmental Services, LLC
Macon, GA

First Choice, Inc.
Williamsville, NY

Great Lakes Cleaning Co., LLC
Bay City, MI

Held's Janitorial Services, Inc.
Elma, NY

Hotel Cleaning Services, Inc.
Phoenix, AZ

Jani-King of Portland
Portland, OR

LaCosta Facility Services
Wauconda, IL

Magic Touch Cleaning, Inc.
Lees Summit, MO

Majic Cleaning Systems
Orlando, FL

McLemore Building Maintenance, Inc.
Houston, TX

Nationwide Janitorial Service
Mishawaka, IN

Northern Professional Cleaning Service
Potsdam, NY

O.E. Enterprises, Inc.
Hillsborough, NC

Omni Facility Services
Southfield, MI

Opportunity Village
Las Vegas, NV

P & B Cleaning Service
Chicago, IL

Palm Facility Services
Bethesda, MD

Quality Janitorial Services (QJS)
Whitby, ON, Canada

Red Carpet Janitorial Service, Inc.
Cincinnati, OH

Rock Solid Janitorial, Inc.
Hampton, VA

Rotunda Cleaning Co.
Dearborn, MI

Royal Building Cleaning Ltd.
Markham, ON

Scarlet & Gray Cleaning Service
Cincinnati, OH

Seattle Building Maintenance, Inc.
Bellevue, WA

ServiceMaster Professional Building Maintenance
Port Jefferson Station, NY

Sodexho
Calgary, AB, Canada

Woori Enterprises, Inc.
Honolulu, HI

Church of God
Upper Strasburg, PA

Clinton Memorial Hospital
Beavercreek, OH

Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH

Emory University
Atlanta, GA

Johnson County Government
Olathe, KS

Newfield House, Inc.
Plymouth, MA

Uniontown Hospital
Uniontown, PA

University of Washington
Seattle, WA

Individual ISP Members

Azusa Pacific University
Azusa, CA

Forest Lake Academy
Apopka, LA

Granite Club
Toronto, ON, Canada

Huggins Hospital
Wolfeboro, NH

Calendar
MAY
 30-31, 2007
Eighth Antimicrobial Workshop. Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, VA
SEPTEMBER
 13-14, 2007
Cleaning System Design. Hotel Orrington, Chicago, IL
OCTOBER
 23-26, 2007
ISSA/INTERCLEAN® North America 2007. Orange County Convention Center,
West Concourse, Orlando, FL
All information in "ISSA Reports" is furnished by ISSA. ©2007. All rights reserved.




POSTED ON: 4/1/2007