Where’s the beef? A sales lesson from the fast-food industry
To not have a sales process in place and to not provide sales training around that process is a failure of leadership.
During college, I took a summer job at the local Wendy’s. I went in on my first day for a breakfast shift, looking forward to what I would learn. The manager took 30 seconds to welcome me, then walked me to the grill, pointed to pictures of the finished products, and announced, “You will need to make these.”
She then went to the register, started taking orders and yelling them back to me. I didn’t even know where to find the ingredients, much less how to put them together!
I somehow made it through the shift, and I remember leaving in complete disbelief. Surely the trainer was just absent that day, right?
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I went back the next morning, once again looking forward to someone training me. Like the day before, it was just the manager and me. Within 30 seconds, I confirmed there would be no “additional” training, and my career with Wendy’s was officially over.
Too many agencies in our industry are guilty of the same tragic treatment of new employees. Think about how your new producer feels when you walk them to their desk, point to their $100,000 new business goal, explain how their job is to reduce costs for one of a business’s largest expense items, and announce, “You will need to make this happen.”
Now imagine how they feel when the reality that you are providing them ZERO sales training sets in. What do they think when they realize there isn’t even a sales process in place?
There is no training without a process
Without a process, you have no way to consistently train new hires. If there had been some documented process for preparing a breakfast burrito during my short-lived Wendy’s career, I might have had half a chance.
What shocks me is how often agencies have no documented sales process in place, either. Often, they have procedures in place for everything else, but how is it possible that so many don’t have a process in place for the one thing that makes everything else possible: how they predictably bring on new business?
There’s too much on the line
Agencies invest tens of thousands of dollars in a new producer. They then disproportionately depend on that producer to bring in new business and even to retain existing business. The way that producer works and behaves in the market impacts the company reputation, the very brand of the agency.
To not have a sales process in place and to not provide sales training around that process is a failure of leadership. It’s not fair to that new producer, who just committed their career to the agency, to not provide every possible tool to be successful. A sales process and training aren’t some luxury items; they are the most basic of growth tools. The producer needs and deserves them.
And if the agency wants to have any hope of protecting their financial investment and enhancing their brand, they must have formal training in place around a consistent sales process.
I don’t get it
This isn’t an occasional agency reality; it’s WAY too common. I have come to believe it happens for two fundamental reasons. First, it is mostly a perpetuated behavior. The agency owner never had such a process or training and still made it, so why should they go to the effort of providing it for someone else?
Second, owners are afraid they will upset their producers by “forcing” them through sales training and to then follow a consistent process.
Sure, there are those producers who have convinced themselves they are better of winging it.
First of all, they’re wrong.
Second, they probably grew up in a much simpler industry. Third, they know without a process and training, they can avoid accountability for their average-at-best performance.
I’m not typically one to buy into generational generalities, but I believe this one is real. The youngest generations of the workforce want training; they want to work for an employer who is willing to invest in their future success. It’s also true of every high performer, regardless of age. We often get inquiries from producers who say, “I’m looking to improve my sales skills, but my agency doesn’t provide training; they just send us out on our own.” How pathetic.
One operational and one financial reason to train around a process
When you can promote a predictable path to success during the recruiting process, you will attract the best, most driven talent. Once you get them on board, your training will give them a competitive advantage and allow them to become productive much sooner. When the market witnesses the consistent success of producers at your agency, guess who you are going to have knocking at your door?
An agency owner recently told me that it took more than 18 years to hit the $1,000,000 mark in revenue. He was proud of that accomplishment, but knew he could do better.
In 2017, he committed to becoming a marketing and sales machine and embraced a marketing strategy based on inbound principles. He and the agency also adopted a structured but flexible sales process, initiated a training program around the process, and then practiced it.
The very next year, they wrote $500,00 in new business, a 50% increase over their first 18 years! Less than two years after making his new commitment, they equaled their first 18 years of production by writing $1,000,000 of new revenue.
How’s that for finding the beef?
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