Converting Exetel From A 'Service' Company....

.....to a 'Sales Company'.

We have begun the extremely difficult process of changing Exetel from a company where each additional employee was hired to perform a job directly related to the support of an established customer in some way to a company that, in Australia at least, will only now hire new personnel to contact potential customers and assist them make a decision to become an Exetel customer.

The current plan is to double the number of personnel within Exetel from 40 to 90 over the coming 12 months with 40 of the 'end total' being direct sales personnel.

We have had, since we commenced business only one person who was designated as a 'sales' person and he was fully occupied in replying to inbound inquiries from business and government people who wanted information having become interested in Exetel via the web site or their own personal experiences as a residential customer.

We have had, for much of our existence, a "sales" option in our IVR and a 'contact sales' email address on our web site but the personnel who answered either the sales calls or the sales email inquiries were the same engineers who answered the support inquiries and were given no "sales training" at all on the basis that residential enquirers basically wanted technical information.

Our web site "marketing" (the overall layout and every single word written) has been done by one person since it was 'created' over five years ago. Whatever any 'critic' may think of our web sites over the years they have been the sole source in creating a $A40+ million business in less than 5 years which was pretty much the target we aimed at.

But now we have to change to build much of Exetel's future growth from the business user market, serious VoIP user and HSPA in both business and residential market sectors.

While a few of our engineering qualified personnel will move to more sales oriented roles, the majority of the, possibly, 40 people we will add to Exetel over the coming 12 months will be new hires who will almost all be recent graduates attempting to build their future careers via their first jobs. A brave, many people might think very foolish, endeavour. Perhaps that is what it is - time will tell. I have been around and intimately involved in selling and building sales forces from 'scratch' many times over the past 40 years and therefore have some quite significant experience in undertaking such a task. However that was then and this is now and now, among many differences, I already have a very large number of other things for which I'm responsible that seem to more than adequately fill my day. So it will be, to say the least, a "challenge".

I spent some time yesterday 'sketching out' how to teach 40 'graduates' how to not only 'sell' but do a better job at 'selling' than anyone they would compete with in today's communications marketplaces. As I have been 'selling' Exetel's products and services via the web site for the last five years my detailed product knowledge of both our own products and those of our competitors is very 'current' so that presents no problem. The techniques to be used do present a problem as I have no recent direct experience of dealing 'face to face' with our business customers. 

So my intended course of action is to 'teach' selling a step at a time and I thought I'd start with the five things that I have found to be the most important aspects/elements of my personal (financially) very successful career in selling technology products and services in Australia over the past 40 plus years which are:

1)      People Usually Prefer To Buy Rather Than Be Sold

This is generally true in the world of business technology decisions and it is very important, especially for sales people at the start of a sales career to keep this in mind.

Rule Number 1: Become as expert as you can as quickly as you can in terms of answering questions about your product lucidly and succinctly.

2)      It’s Difficult Enough To Understand Everything About Exetel’s Products And Services

Never make any comment about any other supplier’s products or services – you have no way of knowing what changes another company has made to them.

Rule Number 2 = No buyer likes someone criticizing another company’s product or service so never do it

3)      Everything Is Urgent In Terms Of Supplying Information

The ONLY time that it’s appropriate to send a prospective customer information about something he/she has requested is the second after you have put down the phone or read the email.

Rule Number 3 = Always do it NOW without fail EVERY TIME.

4)      Unlike The Old (And Discredited) Proverb – All Things Don’t Come To He Who Waits

If you aren’t doing something to generate new sales every minute of every working day who do you think is doing that for you?

Rule Number 4 = Develop a routine that pushes you to use all of your time to generate business.

5)      There is No Such Thing As A Perfect Sales Document

When you join a company/sales team you will 'inherit a lot of "boiler plate" documentation that may well have been written by very senior and very competent people within the company.

Rule Number 5 = Every time you send out a proposal/sales letter improve one thing about it – no matter how small.

If Exetel could have a 40 person sales force that worked every day on this basis then I think we will do very well. There are some other things a successful sales person needs to become capable of doing but not many.

Working out how to get this implemented is something I have given no thought to.