I've worked with over 500 companies,
and I've yet to find companies
that cannot improve
if they do the right things.

If they identify the right strategy
and they implement the right execution,
almost every business can improve
and improve significantly.

My name is Larry Goddard.
I'm the CEO of the Portland Group,
a consulting firm based in Cleveland,
Ohio, that works with companies
to improve their performance, profitability and value.

One of the services that Parkland provides is sales coaching and training.
So we work with companies to improve the effectiveness of their sales force.
And a key part of this is number one,
to make sure that the sales team is being put in a position to win.

The reality is, if the salesperson is
knocking on a door and all they have is a me-too product,
even the best salespeople in the world are going to struggle.
But if you give a salesperson a differentiated value proposition,
even mediocre salespeople can be successful.

But at the same time,
you also need to make sure that you are using the right salespeople for the right job.
And there's the concept of hunters versus farmers.
If you want to develop new business,
it's vital to have hunters focus on new business.
But farmers are very important to growing relationships with existing customers.

We also teach salespeople time management skills.
A salesperson's highest and best use is when they're in front of customers,
not preparing presentations,
not doing estimates and quotes.
If you only have 1 or 2 hunters on your team,
the last thing you want them to do is be doing paperwork.
You want them in front of customers.

And most companies are quite surprised to find out that the people they think are hunters are not hunters.
And they're also disappointed because those people end up focusing on servicing existing accounts.
A lot of times the people they think are hunters are the ones that have the biggest book of business.
But really what they're doing is they're just servicing existing accounts.

The best way to sell is to ask the right questions.
What are your needs? What are your problems?
What are your pain points?
And if you ask the right questions, the customer will do the selling for you.
And then you swoop in with your value proposition
to explain to them how you can solve all their problems
that they've identified for you.

There are some salespeople that are lazy and are not effective.
So sometimes it is the salesperson's fault.
But as I said, that's the last place I look before I blame the salesperson.
I look to see whether they've been put in a position to win
and whether they understand how to optimize their time and their negotiating skills.