The Brand Excuse

Overcoming The "Brand Excuse" & Generating Geometric Sales Growth

Introduction

One of the most crucial steps in transforming a sales team from expected to extraordinary is to break through the Brand Excuse.

The Brand Excuse

The Brand Excuse works the following way: You have branded product/service and hire a sales team. The average salesperson goes out, dutifully presents your brochure, an exhaustive list of features your product/service will provide to the prospect and expects to close a sale.

More often than not the prospect will have a few questions and ask for a cheaper price, telling the salesperson the old story about how the competitors can provide a similar product/service for less…

The salesperson has just created a situation wherein:

  1. The brand is suspected of not being strong enough to sell the product
  2. The pricing of the brand is suspected of being ‘unreasonably’ high
  3. The only viable strategy is to start offering the product at a ‘competitive’ price, thus starting a profit eroding race to the bottom with the competition based on the cheapest price
  4. The sales management is being suspected of being out of touch with current ‘market realities’, hence the unrealistically high pricing

 Who Is Selling? The Brand or You?

The first pivotal step we take in creating cutting edge sales team is to create a clear differentiation between the individual salesperson and the brand.

Being invited to represent and sell a recognized brand is a privilege!

The company has invested money, time and resources to create a specific brand promise, an image that will help the individual salesperson to establish credibility. The salesperson has the privilege of going into a market armed with a brand that will allow him to present himself as someone representing a large professional organization able to supply an excellent product/service.

The act of selling is the whole responsibility of the salesperson!

Breaking Through Responsibility Deflection Factors

It is not unusual for salespeople to exhibit symptoms of the ‘infallibility syndrome’: they assess themselves as excellent salespeople, their presentation is convincing and really gets the prospect rolling (aka: the salesperson is infallible)…. In their assessment the main source for their inability to close at a higher rate is mainly to be found with the company they represent, such Responsibility Deflection Factors as:

  1. Incorrect pricing
  2. The product/service itself
  3. The management
  4. The company’s strategy, systems, etc

To break through these Responsibility Deflection Factors sales teams are taken through a powerful set of de-brief sessions which allow them to clearly assess their real current sales ability.

Creating Outstanding Sales Results: An Excellent Salesperson Sells An Excellent Brand

Having assessed their real current sales ability without the support of the brand each salesperson will now establish a personal sales growth plan, allowing them to learn the specific skills that will propel each one of them to become outstanding salespeople.

This will allow your company to unleash the full sales potential of your team:

A team of excellent salespeople representing an excellent brand who create geometric sales growth!

Article written by: Roger Konopasek
Author, International Speaker, Trainer and Transformational Leadership Catalyst."

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