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Shaping the Profession of Sales
July 01, 2006
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| Charley Cohon |
By Rebecca Aronauer
Death of a Salesman, at times the public still views sales with suspicion. There's the general image problem, of course, as well as a lack of formal opportunities, especially among small businesses, for salespeople to hone their skills and gain new ones.
Meet four people, below, who are energetically reshaping the industry, its image, and its practices. They work in different fields, but they all want to help salespeople and improve the profession—whether by working with franchise owners to perfect their local marketing, by getting salespeople the respect they deserve, or by ensuring that the next generation of salespeople will be as ethical and professional as possible.
Charley Cohon: Repping Manufacturers' Reps
Manufacturers' representatives who work on commission for businesses that don't have their own sales forces can sometimes embody the disconnect that exists between the product and the seller. As a result, their public image at times puts their reliability and skills as salespeople into question. Charley Cohon, a veteran manufacturers' sales rep, is working hard to remake the perception of these reps.
"People who don't fully understand who a manufacturers' rep is might see working for a rep company as being below working directly for a manufacturer," Cohon says. "But it's a misperception, and it's one we can address."
As the president of Prime Devices, a manufacturers' representative company based in Glenview, Illinois, Cohon made a model of himself, earning an MBA from the University of Chicago in 2005 and volunteering at professional organizations. In the process, he became something of a poster boy for the industry, according to Joe Miller, the CEO of the Manufacturers' Agents National Association.
Even at school, Cohon worked to improve the visibility of his profession, encouraging his professors to include outsourced selling in their curriculum. Now, his sales force management professor, Bob Calvin, distributes a handbook on manufacturers' representatives to his students, while working with Cohon improved Calvin's own feelings about the profession. "Knowing Charley, who is a very bright and enlightened businessperson, has changed my opinion of manufacturers' representatives," Calvin says.
Susannah Heart, the executive director of the Manufacturers' Representatives Educational Research Foundation, is especially impressed that Cohon, who is vice president of research for the group, has established ties to the academic world, which she says has been cool toward the industry in the past.
"He's putting us on the map as professional businesspeople," Heart says.
Cohon is doing more than reaching out to professors. In 2004, he published The Sales Force, a book written as a novel to inform manufacturers about the benefits of outsourcing sales, as well as to educate manufacturers' reps on the best and worst practices in the field. Henry Berson, the president of the National Electrical Manufacturers Representatives Association, gives the book to prospective manufacturers to teach them about the outsourced sales option.
"Charley created a text that presents a very valid and convincing argument on why you would want to choose outsourcing," Berson notes.
Cohon's advocacy is making outsourced selling more visible—a big contribution for an often-overlooked industry. "We want people to know exactly and precisely what the outsourced option is," Cohon says. "We want to be on the radar."
Ann Devine: Building a New Generation
Sales leaders are made, not born, and Ann Devine is in the business of making them. Devine is the executive director of Pi Sigma Epsilon (PSE), the national fraternity for sales management, marketing, and selling.
The fraternity was founded in 1952 by an IBM executive and three professors. Today, Devine, based in Milwaukee, organizes regional and national sales competitions for college undergraduates interested in the profession. They learn the latest sales strategies, practice selling techniques, and receive training from sales professionals.
"Our mission is really to develop the sales and marketing skills of our members," Devine says. "They're better prepared to enter the workforce in a career in sales."
The organization holds workshops and career fairs throughout the year; its marquee event is the Pro-Am Sell-A-Thon, with students this year using the SPIN selling technique by Neil Rackham of Huthwaite Inc. to sell Cutco knives. (Vector, the marketing organization for Cutco Cutlery Corporation, sponsors the Sell-A-Thon.) During the competition, sales professionals coach the students on their technique in the morning. In the after-noon, the coaches become judges, and evaluate the pitches to participants playing clients.
"I think it's an exceptional experience for students to get before they graduate," says Sarah Baker Andrus, the director of academic programs at Vector, based in Wilmington, Delaware.
Laura Tomlinson, now a sales manager at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, placed second in the 2005 western regional Sell-A-Thon. She credits PSE and the Sell-A-Thon in part for getting her job at Hyatt and for a promotion she received in under a year there. The hotel now uses her to help train incoming sales managers."I can definitely attribute my promotion to being exposed to the sales process in PSE," she says. "By participating in theSell-A-Thon, you become more confident in yourself."
Tomlinson is not PSE's only success story. Michael Van Grinsven, the director of field recruitment for Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, an insurance investment firm also based in Milwaukee, says PSE students are more talented than their peers. "When we meet these students, they come to us with a better skill set," Van Grinsven says. "They have a business maturity." As well as being a corporate sponsor, Northwestern Mutual often recruits PSE students for entry-level positions after graduation.
Van Grinsven, who has worked with PSE for 18 years, praises Devine for treating Northwestern Mutual as a partner, not just a sponsor.
"She has been very open to input," he says. That makes for a better experience for the students, Van Grinsven believes, since the ideas the corporate sponsors give are a good reflection of the sales industry. Vector's Baker Andrus also appreciates that Devine uses PSE sponsors for more than their funding. "She truly looks at the corporate sponsors as a resource for setting the strategic direction of the fraternity," she says.
Devine is currently working to expand the sales competition and involve more companies. Above all, she hopes to give the fraternity members and future sales leaders an ethical foundation. "We're teaching them that selling is not talk, talk, talk," Devine says. "It's understanding the needs of the buyer."
For more on educational opportunities for budding sales professionals, see our Sales Education Report on page 38.
Brian Lambert: Defining Selling
Doctors have the American Medical Association, lawyers have the American Bar Association, but what do salespeople have to monitor and define the profession? Since 1999, Brian Lambert has been trying to answer that question.
Yes, there are such professional organizations as the National Association of Sales Professionals, Sales & Marketing Executives International, Strategic Account Management Association, Sales and Marketing Executives International, and others. But Lambert decided to form the United Professional Sales Association (UPSA), a nonprofit organization based in Washington,D.C., to define what professional selling is. "We've got a fundamental problem in understanding what we do," says Lambert, whose day job is head of membership development with the Direct Marketing Association, based in New York. "We don't have a common language."
UPSA's primary contribution to creating a common language is its Compendium of Professional Selling, a standards book Lambert wrote with Eric Kerkhoff, the vice chairman of UPSA and salesperson for the International Sales Success Institute in Alexandria, Virginia. Lambert's goal with UPSA is to create a timeless explanation of the sales process, not an ephemeral sales strategy.
Lambert feels that learning the basics of sales outside of the rubric of a specific product or strategy can help salespeople identify their strengths and weaknesses. "To understand what the profession is in terms of the fundamentals helps people execute their jobs more effectively," says Alex Moussavi, who runs the Washington, D.C., chapter of UPSA and is the CEO of Matrixx Partners, a sales consulting company based in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Moussavi was attracted to Lambert's larger vision, but he also appreciates the immediate networking benefits he received after joining the organization. UPSA has a group on LinkedIn.com, an e-networking service. Moussavi credits UPSA with improving his business. "It's gotten me great exposure," he says.
Lambert hopes an evolution toward increased professionalism will occur within the next generation of salespeople. To that end, most of UPSA's 3,000 members are students."There's a difference between being a salesperson and a sales professional," he says.
UPSA has seven chapters, including five in the United States, and administers certification tests based on its compendium of professional selling. The Certified Registered Sales Professional (CRSP) requires three years of field experience, and the first-level designation, Certified Registered Sales Associate, is automatically upgraded to CRSP after the candidate gains the requisite professional experience.
Jonathan Sper, the ethics chairman of UPSA and a salesperson based in Washington, D.C., for the Election Services Corporation, says, "We're really focusing on the professionalism of sales, instead of creating another layer of training or a title."
The stigma often associated with sales attracted Jan DeLory, president of Boston Professional Group, in Cary, North Carolina, to UPSA. A lifelong salesperson, DeLory was frustrated with the image surrounding her profession, but believes that the group's efforts to define the profession and to create a code of ethics will change that. In April, she began a UPSA chapter in North Carolina, which already has 55 members.
"Brian brings so much credibility to this organization because he believes what he is doing will make a difference in the world," DeLory says.
Todd Woods: Capturing the Local Market
Todd Woods wants to change the way franchisees think about marketing. Primarily, he wants franchisees to start thinking about it for themselves.
Even with the support of a major brand and a large advertising campaign, building a community following for a franchise isn't easy. Woods believes many franchisees rely too heavily on their brand. "The franchisees must be taught that they can't rest on the laurels of the franchisors' brands. They need to market themselves," Woods says.
Woods, who is the CEO of Guerrilla Marketing Strategies based in Phoenix, knows this firsthand. Woods operated five Jamba Juice smoothie stores in the Phoenix area for almost 10 years, and learned in the process that defining his brand on a local level was crucial. "What made me successful was going the extra mile and getting involved with my community," he says.
This May, Woods prelaunched his Franchise Training Center, also based in Phoenix. For franchise owners having trouble distinguishing themselves from local competition, the training center offers cost-effective marketing ideas. Each week franchisees receive via e-mail two to three marketing audio lessons and have weekly 30-minute teleconferences with Woods or his Guerrilla Marketing Strategies associates.
The marketing program costs franchisees $69 per month for as long as they're enrolled in the program.
Although franchisees may have a major brand behind them, they are still small-business owners and often short on time. Woods designed the training center to fit their schedules. "Franchisees get so busy in the day-to-day operation of their business, they feel like they don't have time to market," Woods says. "This course makes it easy for them. All they have to do is open their e-mail."
Bill Pellerito, the co-owner of Basic Communications, a Sprint and Nextel dealership in Streetsboro, Ohio, credits Woods with broadening his view of marketing. Before working with Woods, Pellerito was hesitant to leave his daily business to devote that time to marketing tasks, but after working with Woods, he realized he should. "He expanded our understanding of marketing, really making us aware of the value of investing the time to it," Pellerito says. "He helped us understand that you have to take the time to market."
Woods collaborated with Basic Communications and came up with cost-effective marketing ideas for the business, like a partnership with a local car wash. Now, Pellerito estimates that he spends 10 to 12 hours a week in marketing tasks, which he admits isn't enough, but his strategy has evolved past simply being involved with his chamber of commerce and advertising in the local paper. He now sees every interaction with a customer as a marketing opportunity.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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