Chuck Terry’s Blog

Is “Bob The Doughnut Man” Selling for You?

By Chuck Terry, Executive Vice President and CSO – Carew International

First things first let me just say that this is not an anti-doughnut campaign and I certainly have nothing against the basic concept of doing nice things for people. Now that we have established that premise I would like to tell you a story that illustrates the difference between relying solely on personal relationships to gain new business and balancing relationship building with functional sales skills.

My story involves a motivated sales professional that I knew within a company with which I was consulting on sales process improvement. To protect the guilty I will call him “Bob” for the purposes of this piece.  Bob was incredibly diligent and one of the hardest working sales professionals you could ever meet yet he was failing miserably at his job as a route sales professional with a major consumer goods manufacturing company. He was meeting every numeric activity quota such as calls per week, his customers spoke well of him, yet he wasn’t hitting his sales targets.

When his new manager traveled with him he was quite impressed with how Bob would start early and stop at the local bakery so he could take fresh donuts to his clients then swing by again in the early afternoon to take cookies to his later appointments. Everyone was glad to see Bob and his freshly baked treats.  While Bob was universally liked by his customers (at least the ones who weren’t dieting) it became apparent after a couple of ride along sessions with his manager that Bob just never seemed to get around to talking much about business. He was so focused on trying to make friends and get his customers to like him that he never took the time to learn about his customer’s needs. He was well versed in their personal lives but knew very little about their businesses.

The new manager came to learn that Bob had been rushed into the field as a new hire to fill an open territory. He was well versed in the industry and knew the product line inside out but had never received any training on how to sell, a situation not as uncommon as you might think. The sales manager arranged for Bob to be professionally trained in a selling system that taught him to leverage his relationship building skills in order to build the rapport he had already established into credibility and trust. Once his customer’s began to trust him as a business advisor they began to share their needs with him as they related to their businesses. Bob was still bringing doughnuts but now he was also bringing business value to his customers.

At last report Bob had turned things around in his territory. He is still not quite hitting his numbers but he is getting closer every month.  Bob has learned what many sales professionals have and are learning every day. Gone are the days when going out and just making friends are enough. To succeed in sales today professionals need to be able to add value to the businesses of their customers. Success is built upon a balance of both interpersonal skills and functional sales skills and processes. One without the other is nothing more than “Bob the Doughnut Man”!

Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights 

Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.