Sales Tales

An Australian marketeer recently told me about a solution salesteam that every Friday held a short meeting to wrap up the week.

An interesting construct in itself. Always on the agenda though, was a slot called Sales Tales.

The idea was anyone winning a deal had to recount its story to the rest of the team.

Whilst I hope it was a winner, I can’t that imagine this was a success.

In my experience, sales people are useless at passing on anything of meritable best-practice or key messages about a win they’ve earned.

They’ll narrate their irrelevant conversations, meaningless nuances and self-deprecating anecdote at a push. Whilst avoiding any true punch.

Yet such a process is in my view essential.

To shine and make lasting impact, you need to start off with a proper structure. It doesn’t need to be suffocating, merely a discipline within which to report back the glorious campaign.

The end needs to be thought of up front. What’s the point of telling the tale?

How should the intel be then utilised? How can its take-up be tracked? And most important of all, how will you know when the wisdom shared positively propels other salesteam members’ deals?