Down Field: Balancing Your Sales Tactics With Sales Objectives

I started my career in sales & marketing as a teenager.

In fact, I put myself through college, in part, by doing telemarketing -- in the days before call screening and the Do Not Call Registry.

It was a great, though painful, learning experience.

One lesson it taught me was that what sounds great in the executive suite doesn't always work in the field. That's echoed in my work even today.

I worked for several of the largest telemarketing operations in the US. And at each, there was a terrible tension between HOW they wanted me to do my job and WHAT they wanted me to achieve.

At one job, I was told to stick to the script and make sales.

I wouldn't have minded sticking to the script, if it worked. But the script was worthless. It was written by some guy who had never made a telemarketing call in his life. It was stiff, lacked cadence, and was unpersuasive.

So I improvised. And I got called into the office.

"Stick to the script," I was told.

"Do you want me to make sales or stay on script?" I asked.

"Both," my boss retorted. "We're testing scripts."

"So if I don't make any sales, I'll keep my job?" I asked innocently wondering why I got chose as a guinea pig.

"No."

"So, doesn't that say you want sales over script?" I asked quietly. "I'm over quota when I'm off-script."

"OK. Just try to stick a little closer to the script," my boss replied throwing up his hands.

I felt for him. He was stuck in the middle trying to appease both his supervisor and make his sales targets. But my paycheck depended on closing sales not running experiments. As is should be.

Takeaway: When you set a goal, don't tie your sales force's hands. And never, ever, ever, lose touch with the field.