Surviving a Sales Rep: Control the Clock

Hi, Ted Smith, senior vice president of CNET Networks, Business to Business portfolio, and today I'd like to talk with you a little bit about surviving a sales rep by controlling the clock and that sounds exciting, right?

Controlling the clock, what do I mean by that? Well, anytime you've ever been called on by a sales rep, there might be questions about the year, so your quarter system. There might be questions about days of the week that maybe you are available to talk and maybe hours on the clock that you can meet. For each and every one of these things, there are probably going to be questions that a sales rep will ask you. Let's introduce our sales rep who is very curious and then let's introduce you, you're also curious and busy. Let's think back to the last sales call that you might have had. So what are some of those questions, perhaps related to the year? How about your budget? When does your budget cycle end/begin? How about when did you promise the project would be delivered? When does the contract with your current vendor expire? These are all questions that relate to quarters on the calendar.

Now, let's think about the days of the week. So I'm sure you've never had this happen. I'm going to be in town on Monday, so how about if I stop by and give you a presentation about our capabilities? So that's an example of a sales rep taking some control over your week, probably just as much fun as when I stop by, I plan to spend about 2 hours giving you a complete overview of what we can do for you. So now they are controlling the hours in your day. So let's talk about what you might be able to do to use these very same tactics to take control back. At the very least you might want to know what kind of budget cycle they are on and when they need to deliver something to their management. You might want to know something about the products that they're selling you and how they connect to the calendar-- so are they brand new, just been released or are they actually at the end of their useful life and there is a wave coming up? You probably want to know about that, so you're asking those questions. You might also want to know how long this person has been on the job? Are they new? Do they have something to prove? So again you're focused on taking control back on the level of the quarter.

Now let's talk about the week. They told you that they could stop by on Monday presumably because they had a plane ticket that they had already booked and maybe they are visiting somebody else, I don't know. But maybe you know that Wednesday is a day that your whole team is meeting. Everybody is at your location and in fact that's a much better day. So maybe Wednesday is the day that you should suggest and don't actually just cave to whatever you're being told is best for them and then finally when you think about your work day, 2 hours seems like an awfully long time. Why don't you give him an hour and why don't you see if there's anything useful there? So as you can see what we're trying to establish here is the notion of control. They have got a lot of control when they are asking you all the questions about your year, about your week, about your day. You've got an opportunity to do the same thing.

So when you look at the whole situation here, I think this is pretty fascinating. When they control the clock, I would say that you're being sold. When you control the clock, I would say that you're buying something. So I wish you the best of luck in controlling the clock.