John Linton I have been really pleased with the first six months of the program to build a 'corporate' sales force within Exetel. For the first five years of our existence we had no sales people at all (our customers simply ordered from the web site) with the exception of one person who took inbound sales enquiry calls and who organised the faxing of information to a corporate data base. On one occasion we had hired an 'experienced' corporate sales person (much against my better judgment) and that predictably worked out as a complete failure. Our 'new' process has achieved significant early success and, if it continues to do that, we will ramp it up a little in October.
We have so far hired 7 recent graduates, with an 8th scheduled to commence tomorrow, and put them through a very hands on induction program that requires them to learn our services and sales processes well enough to sell one new account in their first month, two in the second, three in the third and four in the fourth to successfully complete their probationary period. To date the first 5 people have all successfully completed this learning process with the fifth completing it last Friday in only 9 weeks - a remarkable achievement for the individual concerned and a testament to the skills of her 'mentor' who was the first graduate we hired.
It was almost like the good old days for me on Friday morning (except the faces round the room were much better looking than the 'old days' as they were predominantly young and female) attending a sales meeting where every person had made their August quota and had a realistically impressive 'prospect list' and spoke so knowledgably and often enthusiastically - it reminded me that I had been away from the joys of corporate selling for a very long time. While our aim this financial year is to build the corporate sales force to around 40 people (larger than the current Australian company) we will not rush that key process as it is partly dependent on the ongoing success in achieving their ongoing targets of each person who joins the company.
It may seem odd to an 'outsider' that we select young recent graduates who, in almost a literal sense, can't spell SHDSL and have never heard of Ethernet in their studies which range across the 'humanities' with no IT or communications components but my view of what characteristics are required for sales success have always been very different from the 'average' and my long experience in a sales career has demonstrated a great deal about how to help any individual become a successful sale person. That is entirely natural as anyone who believes themselves to have been successful in building and running largish sales forces will have formed their own very different views based on their own inter-personal experiences....
...which is, always, the key element in building a successful group(s) of sales people. I doubt whether the key 'ingredients for success in selling vary very much - at least they haven't across my 40 years of having to make tough sales targets in 'giant' mainframes, mid ranges, nation wide networks, corporate PC programs and many different types of communications infrastructures. The success or otherwise in 'brand new' aspiring sales person to become successful is determined by only two factors: Their own characteristics and drive and the one on one teaching and encouragement they receive in the first year or so of their 'sales career'. This means, in theory at least, that it's possible to build a 100% successful sales force by simply hiring correctly and then ensuring the learning materials and the one on on mentoring and teach is as good as it needs to be.
Obviously, literally, millions of companies around the globe do this, some more successfully than others, and the ways, methods, processes of achieving the desired results are well known - except my direct observation of so many sales forces I have encountered shows that not to be the case at all - with few exceptions in my experiences as a 'buyer the 'account managers' and 'market development managers' who have tried to sell me something have been woeful with some notable exceptions. They also don't seem to have been with the company they are representing very long or then last very long with that company.
I am sure we will experience a full range of trials and tribulations along the way if we do proceed to build a sizable sales force - that has always been a given in any rapid building of any level of personnel. However we have thought through this process quite carefully and have improved on everything I have ever been involved in in terms of method and process so, hopefully, we will eliminate all of the more obvious development problems: success in meeting targets, earning a lot of money compared to other opportunities, keeping the product set highly competitive, ensuring promotion occurs earlier rather than later, training effectively all the time and all of the other obvious issues.
I think the induction and early training processes we have developed are unique, at least they are in my experience, and that should ensure there is a very high chance of success in this key aspect of Exetel's development over the coming 18 months. The only way to make that happen is to ensure that everyone who joins always makes their monthly quota - if that can be done then we will achieve what we have set out to achieve.
There is no doubt that success breeds success.