Everyone knows Xerox. And most professional salespeople are familiar with their number one basic selling skills course in the country. But sitting back and relaxing when things are going well isn’t the Xerox style. So they set out to discover, through a team of professionally trained observers, just what the ingredients of a successful sales call are, what the top performers actually do, and what signals clients give out.

The results came from the computer analysis of 500,000 pieces of information. They found that demographic factors, such as age, sex, and experience of the salesperson made no significant difference unsuccessful selling. What mattered was the efficient use of time, listening for customer needs and attitudes, and alertness to closing opportunities – basic organization and paying attention to the client!

Derwin A. Fox, vice president of Development and Consulting Services for Xerox Learning Systems, explains that the research was conducted to “pinpoint the skills salespeople need to be successful and to develop the completely new Professional Selling Skills System III based on these skills.” Fox consults with over 50 major corporations and government agencies each year to analyze training and organization needs, so up-to-date information on sales techniques is crucial. It is also crucial to the readers of Personal Selling Power. In this article, Fox describes the results of the Xerox research. We hope you’ll make good use of them.

The Input

The research employed a team of professionally trained observers who monitored and analyzed more than 500 sales calls involving products and services ranging from high-technology computers to industrial refuse disposal.

We classified the results of the sales calls in three categories:

Successful calls – a sale was made or the customer committed to take action which furthered the sale.

Process continues calls – the customer agreed to meet again at some specific time and place but made no further commitment to advance the sale.

Failed calls – the customer made no commitment at all.

The definition of a successful call reflects the fact that many of the items on the calls we observed were expensive and complex, requiring more than one call to finalize the sale.

In addition to using call results, we used quota performance as a measure of success. We divided the salespeople we observed into three groups based on their past quota performance:

Calls of high quota performers were those of the top third (109 percent or more of quota).

Calls of average quota performers were those of the second third (909-108 percent of quota).

Calls of low quota performers were those of the bottom third (88 percent or less).

We then performed computer analyses to correlate the half-million pieces of information to determine which factors were associated with sales success. We categorized each behavior of the salesperson and the customer. For example, we recorded whenever a salesperson made a benefit statement or a customer raised an objection. We looked at the frequency and sequence of each type of behavior in the call. In addition, we analyzed demographic factors such as the age, sex and experience of the salesperson.

The Results

Remarkably, none of the demographic factors made a significant difference in successful selling. What did make a difference? The ability of the salesperson to recognize cues and use certain skills in controlling the call.

1. Using time efficiently.

One of the factors that occurred in successful selling was the efficient use of time spent with customers. We found:

High quota performers accomplish 20 percent more sales related activities, such as asking questions or presenting benefits, per sales call than low performers, yet they spend no additional time with their customers.

There is no one best way for a sales call to begin. Nevertheless, it is essential to have planned an approach in advance to obtain key information and move quickly to the selling portion of the call.

Successful calls involve more interaction on the parts of both the customer and the salesperson. Yet, the average successful call lasted only 33 minutes.

Asking questions of the customer helps the call progress to a successful outcome. However, calls that do not move beyond the questioning stage are not likely to succeed. Therefore, it is important to know how to formulate questions that will encourage the customer to reveal needs.

2. Focusing on the Customer

Customer needs are the focal point of any sales interaction and there is a direct relationship between the number of different needs a salesperson is able to uncover and selling success.

Customers often mention problems which sound like needs, but are not because the customer has not been made to see they are important enough to want to solve. These statement, which we call opportunities, have no correlation with sales success.

While the number of needs can vary dramatically from call to call, it doesn’t take many to make a sale. On average, uncovering slightly more than two different needs was found to be a good predictor that a call would result in success.

Successful calls contained nearly three times more needs than failed calls and 50 percent more than process continues calls.

High-quota performers uncover significantly more needs than average or low quota performers.

Simply telling a customer how a product or service will be of value is not enough. Success is directly related to the number of different needs the customer expresses and the ability of the salesperson to respond with benefits that meet those needs.

Customer Attitudes

The ability to identify customer attitudes and deal with them appropriately is crucial to sales success. Our research uncovered basic customer attitudes such as: acceptance, objection, and indifference.

Acceptance – agreement with a benefit of the product or service being sold.

The research showed that successful calls contain more than twice as many statement of acceptance by the client as failed calls. The calls of high-quota performers also contained significantly more customer statements of acceptance than those of low quota performers. Therefore, it is important to be able to get a customer to express acceptance since that’s what predicts success.

Objection – opposition to something about the salesperson’s product or service.

Surprisingly, customer objections can also lead to success. The presence of an objection in a call is not necessarily a “bad” sign. We found that objections signal frank, open communication and can be positive when properly handled. In fact, successful calls contained almost 50 percent more objections than failed calls.

The calls of high quota performers were found to contain more customer objections than the calls of average quota performers. Indifference – lack of interest in product or service offered.

Of all the customer attitudes a salesperson faces, indifference is the most difficult to overcome. The problem is that indifferent customers do not see the need for your product or service And, if a customer truly has no needs, then he or she has no reason to buy or use what you are selling. A salesperson’s primary hope in dealing with an indifferent customer is to uncover needs the customer may be unaware he or she has. Statistically:

Failed calls contain significantly more customer statements of indifference than either process continues (on average 2.6 times as many) or successful calls (on average, 3.6 times as many).

Calls with indifference are more than two and a half times more likely to be failures than calls without indifference.

Closing a Sale

What is the best way to close a sale? We found that closes involving a summary of the benefits accepted during the call, combined with an action plan requiring customer commitment, have the highest success rate. Of these, only 7 percent were failures, 18 percent had process continues outcomes and 75 percent were successful. Of course, this type of close required that the salesperson uncovered customer needs and that the customer accepted the benefits of the product or service in meeting those needs. Otherwise, there are no accepted benefits to summarize.

The End Results

In general, differences in sales success are not due to experience per se, but rather to knowledge of the selling process and the ability to use specific skills at the appropriate time.

Poor salespeople seem to be unaware of the skills available to them. They tend either to overstructure the call and fail to establish a smooth dialogue or to lose control of the call.

Average salespeople know what to do but tend to do it inefficiently. They appear to ask good questions but often fail to listen well or take full advantage of the answers they receive.

Successful salespeople are highly efficient in their sales behavior. They use more powerful selling skills much more often. They establish a dialogue easily and control it subtly. They are alert to closing opportunities throughout the call.

How is the bridge from a poor or average salesperson to an excellent salesperson made? It involves learning – and using – each of the following skills:

Asking questions skillfully to gather information and uncover customer needs

Recognizing when a customer has a real need and showing how the benefits of the product or service and satisfy it

Establishing a balanced dialogue and interaction with customers – Overcontrol by either the salesperson or the customer produces failure

Countering negative customer attitudes promptly and directly

Using a benefit summary and an action plan requiring customer commitment when closing

However, there is far more involved than merely recognizing that one must ask questions or handle objections. The successful salesperson must know how and when to use these skills effectively.

This clear understanding of what leads to success is the foundation of the new Professional Selling Skills System III

Derwin A. Fox is vice president, Development and Consulting Services for Xerox Learning Systems.

Fox is currently responsible for the development of Xerox Learning Systems’ commercially marketed programs and consulting services activities. He consults with over 50 major corporations or government agencies each year to analyze training and organization needs.

He joined Xerox in 1969 as Manager of Instructional Technology with the Xerox research and development organization with responsibility for technical and management development programs.

Fox completed his Master’s degree in adult education at the University of Rochester where he concentrated in instructional design and evaluation. He holds an undergraduate degree in engineering from Pennsylvania State University. He is a member of the American Society for Training and Development Research Committee, the National Society for Performance and Instruction, and the American Society for Engineering Education.