The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part I
SportsI have to admit I don’t watch much TV. I don’t have time When people talk about “Big Brother”, “Eastenders”, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”… I have nothing to say because I just don’t look at them. But I like “The Apprentice.” I didn’t watch the first series, but I really liked the last one. So much so, in fact, that I was looking forward to tonight’s first installment. And this made everything more interesting because I know one of the housemates…
Who will be the superstars?
So tonight the new apprentices entered the house. Who will they be? How will they be? Will they go up? Will they fight? Who will be the highly qualified idiot with no common sense? Who will be the braggart who already thinks he made it? Who will be the real superstars? Will there be any? How many of them are obviously not going to be worth anything close to £100k? Surely out of 10,000 applicants there must be more people who “have a shot” than last year? We all waited with bated breath…
Hard work but an easy task by anyone’s standards…
Their first task was to prepare and sell coffee at two stalls per team, one fixed and one stationary. Hard work but an easy task by anyone’s standards. A simple transactional sale: you give me cash, I give you coffee. Some simple calculations of probable sales. A small amount of stock control. Find a place to drink lattes and stomp high for the moving van. Make face-to-face sales. Be ready to move the mobile van if it is not producing. Let’s do it. Easy!
Or so you would have thought…
The list of errors was horrendous…the assumption that because the machine could make 100 cups per hour, you could sell 100 cups per hour! The van located on a quiet street in a market area with cheaper coffee everywhere! Not moving said van for hours! Not being able to answer a mobile phone or return calls! Lack of management! Driving the vans back and forth wasting sales time! Closing one of the vans in a team! Having a “gathering” in the middle of prime selling hours! I could go on, but it’s getting me down…
But none of these are the sales trainee sales training tips for this week…
Not! Because we can do better than them. This week’s sales training tip courtesy of Jadine Johnson… Jadine didn’t fully understand that this was a transactional sale. If he wants to sell as much coffee as possible in one day and he’s never going to do it again, sell, sell, sell and deliver good, solid coffee. But like many salespeople trying to impress, she made it a lot more complicated than she was. Her favorite complication… the Eclipse brand. What? Why the hell was she insisting on the mark? What the hell was she putting Eclipse logos on coffee for? What the hell was that song about Eclipse being the place to buy your coffee?
Errr… no, it’s a TV show and you’re going to get fired if you don’t wake up and smell the coffee.
Jadine, you made up the name yesterday. You are going to make coffee only for one day. You will never see your customers again! This has nothing to do with the brand. It has everything to do with selling. Also, you don’t know people well either. Sir Alan likes people who get along and in many of his activities this means selling well. He hates pretense, and frankly, that’s where you’re at with your irrelevant brand crap.
Tre Azam and the other one who seemed to speak every language under the sun seemed to be right. Well, for the first hour anyway. They were the dream team any sales manager would have begged for: 55 cups in the first hour…from a mobile kiosk. Very impressive. But not good enough for Jadine. No, she divided them and destroyed her territory. Why? Because they weren’t promoting the Eclipse brand. What?! What?! What?! Brand has nothing to do with this, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Watch your sales and make sure you’re not complicating something that should be easy!
Some sales are really complex. Many are really simple. Vendors complicate them for all sorts of reasons. Watch your sales and make sure you’re not complicating something that should be easy!
Until next week…
gavin
ps Who thought Andy Jackson was a bit sensitive? I lost count of the number of times he “touched” the girls. They didn’t say anything. People often don’t. Even “ooh” and “ahhed” when he said something sweet at the end of the exercise. But they tore him apart and expelled him anyway. Was this because of the contact? Who knows?
But if you’re a bit picky like Andy, be careful who you touch… people like me won’t say anything, but we don’t like it! You have been warned. Andy, wherever you are… if you’re selling cars again… keep your hands to yourself a little longer! You can have that advice for free!