Salesperson Strategies: Improving Client Relationships

This post is for you – the salesperson at a learning tech solution or learning system (regardless of type), or an AI solution for your tech stack (the client that is or buyer you want as a client).

There was a time when everyone cared.

There was a time when people – i.e., salespeople actually wanted you as a customer.

They didn’t throw up roadblocks, make it difficult, or seem indifferent.

To be fair, 90% or thereabouts of salespeople in the industry are honest, fair, and truly care, not just from the day you buy, but long term.

They bring an advisor-and-guide approach, and in return, the vendor’s reputation is positive, recurring revenue (which is what vendors want) is sustained, sales are on the upswing, and stakeholders recommend them to others.

Trade shows bring out the best and the worst in salespeople.

If you have ever attended a trade show, you know what I am talking about.

Even worse, the person overseeing the sales department is either unaware (regarding the bad salesperson), indifferent, or just doesn’t care.

I know of vendors in the industry who have been around for more than a decade and have yet to break 8 million pounds, despite having a good system.

There are other vendors in the industry, who people believe are making at least 50M USD per year but haven’t crossed the 15 to 20M USD threshold.

There are vendors with a positive reputation (overall), high name recognition, that have yet to be profitable.

OR they break into profitability only to go below.

Would you be surprised if I told you there are vendors who broke the 100M USD threshold, are bleeding customers, and say all kinds of things, as if blaming not themselves for their failure but other variables (all of which are fixable)?

How about those vendors who internally are constantly restructuring – with salespeople bolting for other opportunities, or being eliminated.

One would think the bolting salespeople are the best, but as with anything, it is mixed.

How many of your salespeople (let’s say you are a client of a vendor) reach out to you, saying they are leaving the company or a restructure happened, and they no longer have a job?

How many of the vendors whose salesperson, your salesperson, is no longer with the company, for whatever reason, let you know about it, within 24 business hours, and assign you to someone who knows your case, and more importantly, you as the customer?

I can say without a doubt, a lot of vendors don’t.

There is nothing more horrible than assigning a new salesperson to your account (i.e., you are the customer) who knows nothing about you. Sure, they could delve into the details, see how you are doing, see if you need anything, and so on, but that takes time – and hey, you are in the CRM at the company, and that is all they need to know.

Let’s Block

How many of you have gone onto a vendor’s website, seen the “schedule a call, or demo”, entered your information, and nobody responds?

Or the response is a generic, you will hear back from us (and they never do), or the salesperson responds but goes right into the qualifier via e-mail?

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why a vendor thinks this is a smart way to entice you to become a client.

Where is the love?

Where is the caring?

Canned responses – nowadays using AI – are the worst.

If it is during normal business hours, the internal salesperson (often your first contact) should receive notifications/alerts and be ready to reach out informally.

Reaching out alone would be nice, yet many salespeople do not – because it is either going to a generic/general e-mail address for sales, or the salesperson just frankly doesn’t respond.

If you, as the prospect, have to reach out by phone (which defeats the purpose of the net and leaving messages), or repeatedly send inquiries, that is a bad move and screams move-on process.

Who is to blame for all of this?

The person overseeing the entire sales division: they either lack effective sales training, don’t have effective sales processes within the company, or don’t validate and follow up to check the status.

There are fill-in comments that go right into Salesforce, HubSpot, or many other CRMs.

Thus, there is no excuse for ignorance.

Who are you going to talk to for that initial conversation?

You may assume that with large entities you will chat with an internal rookie or an entry-level salesperson.

I can tell you that’s false.

Yes, some will do that, but the majority do not – depending on the head of sales’ approach to doing business.

What I see nowadays is the following – and I bet some of you have had the same awful experience.

• The blocker: This is a person who is unqualified in sales and lacks serious empathy for customer service. Think of a screener who doesn’t understand use cases, or thinks everyone is in a bucket. I’ve talked to ones, that included a guy who was in business development (nothing to do with sales of the system), an entry-level who lacked any knowledge about the industry, let alone how systems work, people who argue with you and ask you to tell them why you should ‘sell them’ on you being a customer.
• The Point of Contact – You are in the qualifier stage – if you get the initial call/discussion with someone who won’t be your salesperson: they still want to qualify you: then and only then, if you meet some criteria (unknown to you), they – the person – the initial POC – routes you to a different salesperson. Maybe that person handles your type of business, use case, company size, or region.

The POC region, knowing your vertical, etc., is absolutely fine.

It’s standard in the industry, but if the initial call qualified you, shouldn’t they have those notes in the CRM so the salesperson who reaches out to you gets a solid understanding of your challenges and basics?

Yes, they will want to know more information – but nobody should have to play a whack-a-mole qualifier round.

Who has time for this? I say this as a former training executive buying content, learning tech, learning systems, and so on across many verticals, in companies of different sizes, both global and start-up.

I have a lot to do with my job role and duties, and then I have to play a qualifier round.

Vendor salespeople love to call you, right out of the gate.

They often fail to ask, ‘How do you want to be contacted?’

Maybe you respond quicker via text for some initial discussions – to schedule a virtual call.

Maybe the e-mail route, and sending and responding, are more effective for you in the early stage.

Yes, a virtual call is crucial. You may have a couple of things I always recommend, along with additional e-mails for other info the vendor needs to know or seek out.

But why do salespeople believe a phone call – not virtual – is the route to go?

This screams to me that the head of sales has failed to follow sales business practices and processes, and that either they are not followed appropriately with checks to verify, or the salesperson doesn’t care, because hey, it is all about the sale.

Would you believe?

When you work in this industry, as an analyst, you hear and/or experience all types of stuff.

Some salespeople get away with it, and the head of sales, or even they themselves, go down the route.

Personal Shockers

• A vendor who allowed their salespeople to charge for products, whereas they were included at no charge as part of the system – yep, if I can get you to buy something we normally give away for free, let me do it. The head of sales knew this was going on and found it acceptable.
• Salespeople who promise the world and fail to deliver – we are buddies, you buy, and I ghost.
• Trade show salespeople who may not be actual salespeople – I know of companies that reward people to come to their booth – who are not in sales, product, etc. – One was an executive assistant.
• Vendors who hire people to handle the booth, who do not work for the company – yep, it happens
• Salespeople who do not know the industry – I can’t tell you the number of times, I will mention that someone in L&D usually has a background in OD, only for the salesperson to either say they know it – but ask you ‘how do you define it,’ which means they do not OR have no clue what it means – hint – it is organizational development.
• Salespeople who can’t tell the difference between L&D and Training – Seriously, have you ever studied up on the industry you are selling to? Spend some time, and do not rely on AI to explain it. – I know of a CRO (Chief Revenue Officer – the head of sales) who can’t tell the difference, but tries to sell you – I suspect many of the folks who buy a system for customer training/partner enablement get the L&D thing.
• Salespeople who lack empathy

Would you be surprised?

Vendors whose sales employees use their system but do not take any sales training content, or if they do, it is outdated or does not focus on areas in the L&D and Training segments, let alone the specific verticals they are pitching to.

What about that demo that they set up – whereas you want to go somewhere in the system, they note there isn’t anything in there, or ignore – because they did not verify or prep ahead of time to make sure the system had fake human data, content everywhere in the system to be ready to show?

Think about it – you run a program that trains your employees, customers, members, etc., and you have trainers who must make sure everything is running, working, and complete sets of whatever are in place before you have the virtual call, on-site meeting, seminars, and webinars.

And you are fine with this?

As a client-prospect, what can you do?

This is tricky, because you want to have that positive relationship right away – and with so many great/good/solid salespeople, going to an extra step effort isn’t on your ideal list.

However, what do you do when you deal with the screener, the salesperson who ignores, or just fails at enough, where you get exasperated?

1. Ask to talk to the head of sales – If the salesperson wants to know why, just tell them you want to talk to the head of sales – and stay with that. The salesperson doesn’t need to know why – that is the game people play when you try to cancel a membership, and instead of saying okay, they try to get you to stay, and you get angry.
2. Ask or have the head of sales explain their sales process to you, after you explain what you dealt with. You will hear the head of sales tell you that Baby Fred shouldn’t have done that, that is not their approach, and blah blah. The thing about it is – the blah blah is the indifference.
3. If Baby Fred leads the company in sales, do you honestly believe that the head of sales is going to come down on them, like Zeus with thunder? They may say, ” Hey, so-and-so felt or experienced this with you, and then just talk gibberish to the salesperson, and let it go.
4. You would think the head of sales would have Baby Fred take some courses/content in their learning system to address these challenges, or use an AI coach in their system – if they have one, or be assigned a mentor to guide them.
5. I will be upfront -it is beyond unlikely. Some vendors to spot checks – i.e., they listen into the call, to see how it goes – then maybe some suggestions and move on. The whole idea of sales training within the learning tech they have and via a learning system, is non-existent.

They have a training department.

Rare. Think about this. You are in L&D or Training.

And the vendor who is trying to get you as a customer, or the solutions consultant, is showing the demo: has ZERO experience in training or learning – because the vendor doesn’t have a Training Department.

Why would you want to buy from a vendor who doesn’t have a department with experienced trainers, training professionals, or a training leader?

On what planet or here on earth, would you be fine with this – if you knew ahead of time, this is going on?

Since the head of sales has a sales training background, it does not mean they have a true training or learning background.

It only means they know how to sell.

Bottom Line

Simple.

The goal of the vendor is to get you to buy their system – and be happy with it.

To respond when you have aissue or challenge in a caring manner.

Their focus is on making money, sales, and being profitable.

They should at least recognize that a poor salesperson may not be because they lack the skills, but because they need more training or improvement in those skills.

They – the head of sales should identify and present a set of expectations with a sales process and strategy, and stick to it.

Weed out the bad salespeople – because yeah, they might make you money, but irking off buyers, today, may mean that the person who bought with you now, goes elsewhere and won’t buy from you again.

Repeat customers are crucial.

Teach them the industry – perhaps you should take a course or two (I know CROs who have no idea, even CEOs, and they are the folks overseeing the whole company).

It’s like throwing darts.

The same angle you see with poor salespeople.

Lack of Knowledge, failure to understand the market, the people they are dealing with, the culture, and the buyer.

And who will win here?

You hope it is the buyer, but more often than not, it is not.

It’s the salesperson,

Who couldn’t care less,

Because a sale is a sale.

A quota is a quota.

And you are just a number in their little black book.

AKA as the CRM.

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