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Sales Management Article:Don't Forget the Post Mortem!
by Skip Anderson Selling to Consumers www.SellingtoConsumers.com
The more information a salesperson has about his prospect, the more likely the prospect will purchase from the salesperson.
A “Post Mortem” is
a medical examination of a dead body in order to find out the cause
of death (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary. K
Dictionaries Ltd. 20 Aug. 2007. <Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/post mortem>). Few of us
choose a field of employment that makes post mortems part of our
regular work regimen.
But salespeople and sales managers can add a different kind of post
mortem to their work regimen to help salespeople achieve success and
even wealth. This type of post mortem finds out the cause of a dead sales appointment. These appointments are the ones that don’t go anywhere. Sales post mortems can be performed by the salesperson alone, or with the assistance of a sales manager or other trusted advisor.
Every sales encounter is different. All prospects are different. Salespeople have different attitudes on different days. Market conditions vary from one day to the next. All of these factors—and many others, too—impact the ability of the salesperson to complete a deal on any particular day.
But wildly successful salespeople have learned to embrace the many variables that beat through the veins of human-to-human commerce. Wildly successful salespeople have developed the ability to make large and small adjustments in their selling tactics so that a positive outcome is more likely. They’re able to do this in part because they have gotten very good at performing post mortems (an analysis of a past sales encounter to identify sales areas of concern that could be improved in the future). Performing thorough post mortems will yield big results for the salesperson that undertakes them.
There are three keys to performing effective sales post mortems.
The first is a willingness on the part of the salesperson to explore
potential areas of improvement. A post mortem is no place for an out
of control ego or defensiveness. If sales performance is to be
improved, an open mind must be the starting point. Secondly, thoroughness yields information that can be leveraged into changed sales behavior, and therefore improved sales results. A limited analysis of a sales encounter will yield limited results, whereas a thorough analysis will yield the best results. Post mortems shouldn’t just focus on what the salesperson said, but also on what the salesperson did and how they did it, as well as how the prospect reacted or didn’t react. Just as medical examiners don’t like to miss reasons for death, sales post mortem participants should avoid missing reasons for death of a sale.
Finally, post mortems will be most valuable if the salesperson is able to notice details about the sales interaction that usually doesn’t appear on her radar screen. If one salesperson is particularly adept at the use of the English language, she may be inclined to recognize when she utilized a poor choice of words in her sales presentation. But, she may not have an inclination to recognize how her disheveled attire impacted the sale. A sales manager, mentor, or video camera may help the salesperson focus on the portions of a sales interaction that are not typically at the forefront of the salesperson’s mindfulness, and that's when expanded personal awareness can occur.
Don't forget the post mortem!
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