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Cranfield Report
Improving the Sales Force
Linking sales meeting behaviour to sales success

Inside: How different are Account Managers, New Business and Telesales? 8 Sales Person Styles The Formula for Sales Success Dr. Iain A Davies, Dr. Ken Le Meunier-FitzHugh, Prof. Lynette J. Ryals, Russell Ward

Pre-meeting

Behaviour

Listening

Presenting

Selling

Improving the small things can make the di erence between winning and losing or success and failure - in sport and business

Contents
Foreword Foreword by Bill Thomson, TNT Foreword by Russell Ward, Silent Edge Executive Summary What is Wrong with Sales? About Silent Edge Overall Results In-Depth Look at: New Business Account Managers Telesales The 8 Types of Sales Person Style 1. Socialiser 2. Deal-Maker 3. Narrator 4. Product/Service Focused 5. Storyteller 6. Consultant 7. Product Closer 8. Expert The gaps in sales performance Developing high performing sales people The Formula for sales success Conclusion 4 5 7 8 9 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 31

3

Foreword
In the summer of 2008 many companies experienced a sudden and unexpected cataclysm. Their order taking stopped and the order book started to dry up. Try as they might, their experienced sales teams that had been successfully selling for years now seemed to be struggling to close deals. In reality, the economy had been through a 12 year boom up until the end of 2008 so the real need to sell had not been there for many organisations. The orders kept coming and there was no real pain. There was no need to invest in their sales teams with expensive timeconsuming courses that would teach them how to sell. There seemed to be good sales people everywhere – verified by their sales figures. However as we can see now in November 2009, good sales figures in boom times are not necessarily an indicator of a good salesperson. Companies are now facing a new and urgent problem. There are about 1 million sales people in the UK and anyone
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